Fly, crash, adapt
Paul MacCready (1925–2007) was an aeronautical engineer and lateral thinker. He invented the first human-powered aircraft. MacCready was born in Connecticut to a family of doctors. He was fascinated by engineering and aeroplanes from a young age. At 15 he won a national model building contest. He said, ‘I was always the smallest kid in the class and certainly not the athlete type. And so, when I began getting into model aeroplanes, and getting into contests and creating new things, I probably got more psychological benefit from that than I would have from some of the other typical school things.’
MacCready trained as a US Navy pilot during the Second World War. He gained a degree in physics from Yale University and a PhD ...
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