Don Monroe 
and craftsmanship to the project. 
Within a few days the two were draw- 
ing templates and building the first 
wing ribs for a prototype that was 
to have a wingspan of eighty-eight 
feet — one foot less than a DC-9 Series 
10 airliner. A few quick measurements 
showed that the plane would have to 
be assembled in a larger space than 
they had available. While aluminum 
tubing began to be shaped into frame 
members, a search for a hangar began, 
and MacCready recruited a fourth 
teammate, a soaring and hang-gliding 
enthusiast named Jack Lambie. 
The hangar search turned up a tem- 
porary assembly site: the Rosemont 
Pavilion, a large building used during 
the construction of the mobile floral 
displays for Pasadena’s annual Tour- 
nament of Roses. The one drawback 
was limited time; the building would 
be needed in a few weeks to begin 
preparations, for the Rose Bowl Pa- 
rade. MacCready decided to try it 
anyway. The materials were moved 
in on September 2, and for the next 
ten days Jack Lambie, Kirke Leonard, 
and Paul MacCready sawed and 
drilled aluminum tubing, while Peter 
Lissaman verified calculations. 
Most of the plane’s components 
were “lofted,” or laid out, full-size 
on the floor, using chalk, tape, and 
paper templates (a method used three 
years later on the successor to the 
Gossamer Condor, the Gossamer Al- 
batross, which flew across the English 
Channel). The wing spar was assem- 
bled from eight lengths of two-inch- 
diameter aluminum alloy tubing. There 
were only seven thin aluminum tubing 
ribs, and they were weighted with wa- 
ter bags to simulate flying loads while 
the bracing wires were rigged. The 
covering was Du Pont Mylar, a trans- 
parent polyester film. 
Anyone who has worked in the aero- 
space industry can only smile at the 
thought of four men proposing to build 
an 88-foot-span airplane in ten days. 
It is too funny to even argue about. 
And yet MacCready even anticipated 
that the whole Condor project could 
be completed in six weeks. 
In fact it took fifty-two weeks, al- 
most to the day; but the first pro- 
totype, astonishingly, was completed 
on schedule. Ten days after the team 
started assembling the trial plane up- 
side down on the floor of the Rosemont 
Pavilion, it was ready for glide tests. 
It even had a name. In several Mac- 
Cready family conferences Condor 
had emerged as the prime candidate 
because of the California condor’s rar- 
ity, ungainliness, and great wingspan. 
Gossamer was added because of the 
plane’s fragility and lightness, and 
also, as Parker MacCready says, “Be- 
cause it sounded right.” 
Paul MacCready was away on a 
business trip on September 14. When 
he returned at 8:30 that evening, it 
was to the news that the project would 
be losing most of its space the next 
morning and would have to be out 
of the building completely by the 
afternoon. He decided that they 
should finish the plane and fly it that 
night. It took three hours to cover 
the wing-tip rudders with Mylar, con- 
nect their rubber-band centering con- 
trols, and attach the last few wing 
wires. 
Just after midnight Paul and Tyler 
MacCready, Kirke Leonard, Jack 
Lambie, and several friends and re- 
lations eased the huge plane out to 
the Rose Bowl parking lot and turned 
it right side up. There had been heavy 
ground fog all evening, and now the 
fog turned to a fine drizzle. The crew 
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