At least until we perfect Jetsons-style backpack rockets, Dr. Paul MacCready’s invention of a pedal-powered hang glider will remain the closest humans will come to flying with the freedom of birds. MacCready, a noted aeronautical engineer designed the Albatross predecessor, the Gossamer Condor, which won the $95,000 Kremer prize for the first successful sustained and controlled human-powered flight in 1978. The Albatross he planned to debut would take that to the next level.

On this day, June 12, in 1979, a crowd gathered to watch Bryan Allen, an amateur cyclist, take the Albatross down the runway and up into the air for the first successful human-powered flight across the English Channel.

MacCready and Allen’s experimental flight almost had to be aborted when “a triple-whammy of failures,” in Allen’s words, hit shortly after takeoff. The radio transmission button failed, forcing Allen to use hand gestures to communicate with ground crews (though they could still reach him by radio.) Then, headwinds delayed his progress and he ran out of water. Finally, the unexpected delay caused power to run out from the navigation instruments. Facing turbulent weather with land nowhere near in sight, Allen was only saved from having to ditch his aircraft by finding calmer air at a higher altitude. 2 hours and 29 minutes later he was back on solid ground on the opposite shore of the channel.