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It wasn’t as historic as the Wright brothers’ first flight, but seven UC Irvine mechanical engineering students, as part of a senior class project, have managed to build and successfully fly a human-powered airplane.

The students dubbed their plane, which weighs about 135 pounds and is pedaled like a bicycle, “UC-ME-FLY� (“you see me fly�), and stands for University of California Mechanical Engineering Flight.

With 96-pound Thuy Nguyen at the controls, the plane has flown about 13 times, traveling as far as 300 feet, according to Ricky Lee, student leader of the project. The most recent flight, at Crawford Field on the UCI campus, was over the weekend.

The first flight, on May 28, came after nine months of work. The students stayed up from midnight till 7 the next morning assembling the plane so it would be ready to fly early in the morning when there is no wind, Lee explained.

Nguyen trained for the flight from September until May, lifting weights and riding her bicycle. She even did homework while riding an exercise bike.

The students chose her to fly the craft because she is the lightest of the seven. Altogether, she went up about a dozen times, on May 28 and June 8 and 11.

The students spent about 5,000 hours working on the machine, an average of 30 hours per student each week.

The plane is made of balsa wood, clear Mylar tape, string and carbon fiber, which is lighter and stronger than Styrofoam. It has a wingspan of 100 feet, according to Ron Richmond, the students’ faculty adviser. The fuselage was taken from one built the year before by UCI students. They got it off the ground, but it crashed almost immediately, breaking a wing.

Lee hopes next year’s students will continue to work on UC-ME-FLY, and perhaps extend the flying time.