Many people through history have attempted man-powered flight. One of the most famous was Galileo, who produced wonderful design drawings of flying machines. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that man could fly, and those early flying machines, like those used today, depend on engines. But even today, people dreamed of building a plane that did not need an engine. Gliders don't have engines, of course, but they have to be towed up into the sky by a small plane powered by an engine. In recent years, it has become possible to build extremely light and efficient planes that could be powered by humans generating a small amount of power. These are what we refer to when we talk about man-powered flight. One of the things scientists wanted to do was to see if they could recreate the journey that Daedalus and Icarus took, which was to fly from Crete to another island - a total distance of 159km. It took many years to design a plane that could do it, but finally they were ready to try!