In June 1979, Paul MacCready's Gossamer Albatross won aviation's largest prize, the $200,000 Kremer Award for a memorable 23-mile flight across the English Channel from England to France. The Albatross weighed only 70 pounds, had a wing comprising 96-feet of wafer-thin mylar, and two wheels weighing an ounce apiece. Its fuel? Bananas, apples, hard rolls, and a pint of water -- for its "engine," a 26-year-old cyclist named Bryan Allen.

[The flight lasted two hours and forty-nine minutes.]