Named for a mythical hero like its evolutionary predecessors, Aurora Flight Science’s Odysseus is a huge, but ephemeral thing. A wingspan larger than the largest 747’s and a weight no greater than a Smart Car’s (around 1,500 pounds) means this airplane will be slow and frail. A carbon fiber tube structure covered by lightweight Tedlar™ resembles the construction of Solar Impulse, but without the bulk of carrying a pilot. Since its antecedent was the world record holding distance champion in human-powered aircraft, the manner of flight is no surprise. Its intended altitude is. Odysseus takes it to the stratosphere. It’s the latest revelation in a thirty-year exploration of low-powered, extreme-endurance aircraft. Before he founded Aurora, John Langford led a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students in a four-year program that developed three human-powered craft – the Daedalus series. In its final iteration, Daedalus set the still-extant world record for human-powered flight distance, 72 miles emulating the flight of its …
