Columbia bike shop owner creates gadget that helps Gossamer Condor fly

The Gossamer Condor in the Smithsonian institution. Photo by ideonexus

Columbia Tribune columnist Sue Gerard explains how her son Walt, founder of Walt's Bike Shop in Columbia, invented a gadget that helped the Gossamer Condor--the first human-powered aircraft--complete its record-setting run:

Walt and Dave, innovative bicyclists, saw the serious bicyclist’s need for a device that would measure two things: miles per hour and cadence, to monitor the speed and regularity of pedaling. Walt and Dave set out to create a device they called "The Pacemeter." . . .

Walt and Dave planned for their Pacemeter to have two dials, a speedometer and a tachometer to register the rate and rhythm of pedaling. A glance at the handlebars would help the rider get "more miles for less muscle."

They refined the device until it weighed a mere nine ounces.

One morning, Walt received a call from a California fellow who was vying for the Henry Kremer prize - $87,000 for the first person in the world to invent a successful plane propelled by human power. It had to take off, clear a 10-foot pylon, fly a half-mile, turn around, return and land safely. Paul MacCready explained they were working on a human-powered plane and thought the Pacemeter could help them. They flew many unsuccessful trials, always improving the design and reducing the weight to attempt to earn the Kremer prize. A bicycle racer who weighed twice as much as the plane was set to try again in MacCready’s "Gossamer Condor," a flimsy, 70-pound bird with a 96-foot wingspread. At 7:37 a.m. on Aug. 23, 1977, like a silent movie, the Gossamer Condor moved forward and lifted upward. It now hangs in the Smithsonian with the Pacemeter attached.

Read the rest of the story in the Columbia Tribune.