Wow. I spent most of my undergrad extracurricular effort working on my university's HPH team. Incredibly difficult challenges in aerodynamics and structures. The goal is to go for a whole minute and reach 3 m altitude. In the few decades the prize has been offered, the record has been seconds and centimeters high.
Is storing energy against the rules? for example pedaling for an hour or two to store up say mechanical energy in a flywheel, spring tension, hydraulic pressure or other means then just put the rotors in gear to lift off?
I have to assume so. Leverage is presumably allowable though.
Once you're in the business of storing mechanical energy, you haven't solved the problem of sustained human-powered flight and you're really just a technology epoch away from using a motor and a capacitor.
They are right on the edge of flight/no flight. The driver is pedalling flat out and it's not flying. Then it hovers for a few seconds, then it goes back to on the ground.
