THE FLIGHT OF THE GOSSAMER CONDOR

1978 Academy Award Best Documentary Short Subject

THE FLIGHT OF THE GOSSAMER CONDOR film tells the inspiring true story of history’s first successful human-powered flight. Renowned inventor Dr. Paul MacCready and his team, with Bryan Allen piloting and powering the Gossamer Condor, were filmed creating the world-famous pedaled-powered airplane as it happened. 

This Documentary film from filmmaker Ben Shedd and Producer Jacqueline Phillips Shedd received the 1978 Academy Award® Oscar® for Best Documentary Short Subject and 14 other International film awards. 

An excerpt of THE FLIGHT OF THE GOSSAMER CONDOR is shown in the Gossamer Condor exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. The historic flight of the Gossamer Condor was featured as one of the Millennium Moments in the National Geographic® magazine February 1998.  

Filmmaker Ben Shedd feels that finding Dr. MacCready when he did in 1976 was “like finding the Wright Brothers just before they built their first gliders and following them to Kitty Hawk, camera in hand to film what they did.” This family film about the first successful human-powered airplane documents an historic landmark event in the world of flight as the Gossamer Condor pedaled-powered airplane flew into aviation history.