A human powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft powered only by the legs of the pilot. Flying on the very edge of physics, each HPA flight is a triumph of lightweight engineering, low speed aerodynamics, and a heroic pedalling effort.

Jesse has designed, built, and flown, the first successful HPA of the Netherlands, in 2009. He made the design when he was still in high school! Two more HPA projects have followed since.

This lecture tells the story of the second HPA project, where Jesse teamed up with the Dutch Consulate in Japan to enter the first ever European HPA in the Japan International Birdman Rally (JIBR) in 2012.

The JIBR is an annual, televised HPA competition, held over Lake Biwa in Japan. It is the largest and oldest continuous HPA competition in the world. Every year about twelve such aircraft, built by Japanese university teams and industry professionals, compete for the longest flight distance.

Building and flying a 32 meter wingspan aircraft, abroad, in just three months – it sounds incredulous, even to aerospace industry professionals. But it did happen, and this is the story.

Jesse van Kuijk, PhD, is a human powered flight enthusiast from the Netherlands. He studied Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. His MSc work focused on rotor-stator-wing aerodynamic interaction for turboprop aircraft, and his PhD focused on modelling the physics of metal fatigue. He has worked for PAL-V, a Dutch flying car company, and is currently employed at ASML, a semiconductor photolithography machine developer. In the meantime, he is trying to get a space startup off the ground.

His interests in engineering and aviation are wide and diverse, but human powered flight and human space flight hold a special place.

Jesse made the first successful HPA flight of the Netherlands, in 2009. He designed this aircraft three years earlier at the age of 16(!)

More flights were made in 2010, after which the HPA was retired to the collection of the Aviodrome aerospace museum in Lelystad, the Netherlands.

While Jesse was working on a new and improved HPA design, he got the exceptional opportunity to join the 35th edition of the Japan International Birdman Rally, in 2012. This talk focuses on the adventure of building, testing, and flying this second HPA in Japan.

In 2015, the Belgian prime time popular science TV-show ‘Het lichaam van Coppens’ wanted to answer the question: Can a person fly like a bird in a self-built airplane? Jesse designed a deceivingly simple and easy to build HPA, and the TV presenter flew it successfully.

In 2020, a foundation was established for future human powered flight projects in the Netherlands: 'Stichting Human Powered Flight Nederland' – see also their website.

So far, Jesse has flown seven different HPAs in three different countries.