Product Design

Paul Maccready

Design today places a premium on beauty, lightness, speed, and sustainability. Paul MacCready’s energy-efficient vehicles have been a paragon of those virtues for decades before they became so urgently fashionable. MacCready’s early innovations earned him the moniker “father of human-powered flight.” In 1977, MacCready made history with his Gossamer Condor, the first successful human-powered airplane. Two years later his Gossamer Albatross broke records as the first human-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. Supported by NASA, MacCready and his team are currently at work on solar-powered high-altitude aircraft that will someday allow for nonpolluting flights in the stratosphere and the relaying of multichannel-bandwidth communications. Committed to the green evolution of all modes of human transport, he is also deeply engaged in experimentation with new solar- and electric-powered cars and is a leader in global initiatives to develop vehicles powered by batteries and alternative fuels.