Bird like mechanically assisted flight....

[Evasporque]

Posted yesterday to YouTube....reported in Wired and now the debate rages....is it real or an elaborate hoax.

I believe...(I want to believe)

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/human-bird-wings/


I think it is real....I'll join the debate...regardless the video if real is incredibly touching and if real one of the greatest human engineering achievements ever...

[Baitball Blogger]

1. I believe.

[Skinner]

2. I vote fake.

But the Wired article seems to be reporting it as real. Which is... um... interesting.

[Evasporque]

6. WHy I believe.....and why I don't

I tend to want to believe its real because of the mechanics of the take off, the camera angles, the technology used seems right...I cant understand why no one has done this yet...

We have the light materials and the small powerful motors....I suspect getting the wing motion and design right for a set of wings on a human was the key...the leading edge and a bit back of the wings is where all the lift comes from the motion of forward acceleration to create lift I suspect was key....and getting the energy required....

Birds fly effortlessly....and their wings are incredibly powerful and efficient....it makes sense the right combination of shape, power and motion would easily lift a human....

It would be interesting to compare the weight of an albatross body full of fish and the wingspan to this set of wings...those wings are long and thin and take off is a running start....and those birds are big...

but then again...faked video keeps getting better and better....time will tell I guess...maybe it will at least spur peoples imagination. ...the public will demand a l more video....in full HD with accredited witnesses...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. nicely done

[warrior1]

4. yeah saw this yesterday

this had been posted before. Pretty awesome.

[Ganja Ninja]

5. It looks fake to me.

The fabric on the wings should be filled with air and bulging on the down strokes.

[Evasporque]

7. The leading edge and a bit back is where all the action is....that is tight

the loose fabric on the back I don't think matters....

[Lint Head]

8. The wings have two electric motors.

The article on the humanwings.net website shows the schematic.

[Evasporque]

9. ALbatross running take off comparison video

The last bird at the end of the video is best....watch the wing shape and compare to flight video....very similar....

[zipplewrath]

10. Fake

Without more info, everything points to a fake. As I said in another thread, just start with energy. It takes AT LEAST as much energy to do what he did as it would to climb up a rope with just your arms. Most folks can't do that at all. Those that can probably couldn't climb that high, that fast, without using their legs. Throw in efficiency losses through the mechanisms and the need to also propel ones self forward, and I'm dubious that anyone can do this at all.

Then you look at the video and some things just don't "look right". Mostly it points to CGI. Alternately, he could basically be a human "kite" with something in front of him pulling him along (a truck, a winch, an ATV, etc.). His descent looks a bit odd as if something suddenly stopped propelling him forward.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. Fake. Albeit a very good and convincing fake.

It can't be done. Humans are too heavy and our pectoral muscles aren't strong enough.

[mike_c]

12. I'm skeptical....

The wings look like simple fabric over a framework, which makes them more like insect wings than bird wings and (especially) fixed aircraft wings. That means that they should pronate and supinate as part of each wingbeat cycle. If you go to the dude's website there's another video of someone else's wing model in operation and it does pronate and supinate exactly as expected-- but it's just a model and does not fly.

This guy's wings appear to simply flap up and down, which just wastes energy moving air around. The wings leading edges should be nearly vertical during the upstroke portion of each wingbeat, and flat to slightly down turned on the downbeat portion. PLUS I'm not convinced that the physics of insect flight is even possible in our atmosphere for an animal the size of humans-- when it's modeled with scaled up models in the lab, the medium has to be considerably thicker than air, usually something like mineral oil, to account for the viscosity difference that small size makes.

So yes, I'm sceptical.

[Evasporque]

13. there is a video on his site that describes the motors used and the armature...

The shaft off the motor is curved to create a downward rotation of the leading edge that creates the lift right before the down stroke to prevent losing the lift gained...I think the basis of flight in a bird is extremely elegant and hitting the right combination I think the amount of lift generated would be surprising....

[Ready4Change]

14. I'd lke it to be real, but think it's fake.

There are a couple of things that seem 'off' to me. As much as I'd love this to be real, the off things are keeping me from believing it.

The way his legs dangle at first seems right, according to how his harness is attached only to his upper body, assuming the wings could produce the needed lift in the first place. Not only would that keep the center of mass in about the right spot for where the wings center of lift would be, but it would be hard physically to stretch them straight back, when your only support is from your belt upwards. But then they angle backwards. That would cause a rearward weight shift that would make the whole assemblage pitch up, which would cause it to try to climb, which would cause it to slow down. It doesn't do any of that. Actually, at that point, the whole thing pitches down, and seems to accelerate forwards, the opposite of what the weight shift should make it do.

How does he run before takeoff, with fabric connecting his ankles like that? How does he run after landing with that fabric? After landing, he runs for about 5 seconds. Why? If he's supposed to be slowing down from high speed, the fabric should have tripped him. If he wasn't going that fast when he landed, why run for 5 seconds? And with the angle of the wings, they should be producing enough drag that that alone should allow him to stop, even from a full sprint, in just a couple of steps.

I'd love this to be real. I dream of flying like this. And if it is for real, I want to get into it.

However, this video has enough oddness that I'm not buying it. I'd be delighted to find out I'm wrong.

[Rex]

15. Nice try but the wings and tail are simply

not to scale with what would be needed to lift a 150 pound person imo. I agree with everyone else, awesome video and if they did find a way to do it then I am amazed beyond words.