MacCready Gossamer Penguin

The Gossamer Penguin was a solar powered experimental aircraft created by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment, developed from the human-powered Gossamer Albatross as a demonstration of solar flight at Minter Field near Shafter, California. A three quarter scale version of the Albatross II, it had a wingspan of 71 feet and weighed 68 pounds without its pilot. Its propeller was driven by an electric motor fed by a solar panel of 3,920 cells. Test flights first used a battery pack, with MacCready's thirteen year old son Marshall as pilot, and pilot Janice Brown made a public demonstration flight of about two miles at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on 7 August 1980. It was the third solar powered aircraft to fly and the second crewed one.