Kremer Speed Prize and Later Flights By MIT Team
A week after the cross-channel flight of Gossamer Albatross, which used a propeller designed by the MIT team, a student-led team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved first flight on their Chrysalis aircraft, which demonstrated full controllability and went on to be flown by 44 different pilots, including the first flights by female pilots.
The third Kremer prize of £20,000 for speed went on 1 May 1984 to the MIT design team for flying their Monarch-B craft on a triangular 1.5 km course in under three minutes (for an average speed of 32 km/h): pilot Frank Scarabino. Further prizes of £5,000 are awarded to each subsequent entrant improving the speed by at least five percent.
Over the next four years, the MIT group continued to evolve their designs, with the Monarch and Monarch-B aircraft succeeded by three follow-on designs, the Light Eagle and two MIT Daedalus aircraft, the Daedalus-87 and Daedalus-88. The current distance record recognised by the FAI was achieved on 23 April 1988 from Iraklion on Crete to Santorini in the MIT Daedalus 88 piloted by Kanellos Kanellopoulos: a straight distance of 115.11 km (71.53 mi).
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