Paul MacCready - A Visionary and Imminent Achiever Creative Genius - By Lance Winslow

[Lance Winslow]

By Lance Winslow

Paul MacCready was one of the greatest innovative aviation pioneers of the 20th and 21st Century. He is know for so many great inventions including building a flying human powered aircraft that flew across the English Channel.

Having corresponded with Paul a number of times on UAV and MAV concepts, it was amazing his generosity with his time and how he listened and gave guidance in my designs, ideas and concepts and steered me in the right direction. Often I found that others would not listen, yet he was so intrigued by original thought and ideas and even until the end seems to have been a sharp mind, most likely because he used it so well.

Paul MacCready was an inspiration to me and mentored me with several of my concepts, giving me advice and allowing my ideas to be passed on to his team members to help in the AeroEnvironment cause (AeroEnvironment is the company he Founded). Visionary comes to mind when I hear his name, but he was even more than that. He was the one in a million Imminent Achiever Creative Genius with perseverance and never knew the word never. There are so few individuals who have lived their lives with so much passion.

We all owe it to ourselves to follow his legacy as he always led by example and he never gave up. One of the most impressive people I have ever corresponded with, we need more like him, so let's all try to be more like him and promise ourselves to take all this to the next step and continue the forward progression of mankind. - Sincerely Lance.