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Madcaps and Oddballs

Japanese manpowered flight competition. Manpowered flight - the story from Icarus and Daedalus to Kanellopolous’s 1988 distance record. Footage includes many bizarre attempts down through the decades, with a fair degree of colour and humour. Diagrams explain the problems of manpowered flight. It will never fly - Zany home-made flying machines 1900-39. Humour is the keynote. Wartime Oddballs - German piggyback aircraft and other projects, the flying jeep, and many more. White Elephants - expensive projects that hardly got off the ground. These will include Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, the Northrop Flying Wing, and the British TSR project. The one that worked - Voyager’s 1986 non-stop circumnavigation.

čeština English
  • Originally Aired January 25, 1997
  • Runtime 50 minutes
  • Network BBC One
  • Created January 11, 2018 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified January 11, 2018 by
    Administrator admin