PEDAL, CURTIS, PEDAL!

CABINET PLAQUE · TRUE STORY

The machine was real

In August 1994 — the snapshot is date-stamped 94-8-27 — Curtis wheeled a human-powered helicopter across a Boeing hangar floor. Navy officer, orchardist, lifelong builder of model airplanes, he had spent months turning bicycle parts and balsa-wood thinking into a rotor you could drive with your own legs. He named it the Tipsy Bee. The family has never fully explained why, and we have stopped asking.

His son Andrew supplied the engine: two legs, pedaling at Boeing Field until they burned. Across the Pacific, a rival crew from Nihon University had already set the mark that haunted every hangar — the Yuri I, aloft for 19.46 seconds. That is the whole sport. Human-powered helicopters do not soar; they tremble a few inches off the concrete while a stopwatch runs and everybody forgets to breathe. Every second is a victory lap.

The title is the family chant — it is what gets yelled at whoever is in the seat. This game is a love letter, not a parody. The farm still names its machines.

Ground effect is real physics, not arcade physics: a rotor hovering within its own span of the floor rides a cushion of pressed air. The Tipsy Bee lived on that cushion. In the game, so will you — stay low and the lift comes easier.