Bossi-Bonomi Pedaliante

Pedaliante
Role	human-powered aircraft
National origin	Italy
Designer	Enea Bossi
First flight	1936
Number built	1

The Pedaliante (Italian for "Pedal Glider") was a human-powered aircraft designed and built by Enea Bossi and Vittorio Bonomi and credited with, in 1936, making one of the first fully human-powered flights. The aircraft successfully traveled 1 km (0.62 mi) as part of an Italian competition, but was denied the monetary prize due to its catapult launch.

In 1932, Enea Bossi heard of an airplane which had successfully flown while powered only by a 0.75 kW (1.01 hp) engine. This prompted Bossi to calculate the minimum power that a manned aircraft would need to fly. The calculation yielded a value of approximately 0.70 kW (0.94 hp), which convinced Bossi that human-powered flight might be possible.

During a trip to Philadelphia, Bossi tested the speed at which a glider would take off under tow. The experiment consisted of hiring a professional bicyclist to tow a glider. A spring scale was attached to the tow line to sense the force exerted by the bicyclist, the results confirming that a speed at which the necessary lift could be obtained was indeed attainable. This same experimental procedure was later repeated as part of the development of the Gossamer Condor and the Gossamer Albatross.

A second experiment conducted during a trip to Paris involved a propeller-driven bicycle designed by Bossi; the test rider achieved a speed of 37 km/h (23 mph), but one drawback was noted: the gyroscopic effect of the propeller generated so much torque that the bicycle became unstable. Bossi concluded, erroneously, that a successful human-powered aircraft would therefore require two counter-rotating propellers to cancel out the effects of torque.

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