Studies In Ornithopters

weileong writes "This should be of especial interest to fans of Frank Herbert's Dune (or maybe only those who preferred House Atreides) - a genuine, flexible, flapping-capable winged aircraft (by which I don't mean passenger-carrying. Yet.) has been produced by the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies and SRI International (Washington Post article, free reg required). Advantages include everything from low speed control to efficiency. Once these things really hit "real world" usage, the V-22 Osprey really HAS no reason to exist (and all the army personnel at risk of dying in one should rejoice)."

Comments

If submiter had bothered to read the article

[kfg]

he might have noted that there are no plans to build larger versions of these things. The entire point is small "insect sized" spy drones.

Various small ornithopers have been built. You can even buy toy windup versions. In small sizes they work.

They do not scale. There is no known way to make them scale. Neither the physics nor the engineering support the idea of producing large amounts of lift be rapidly anad violently flapping around large inertial masses.

Not to mention the fact that in the large scale the problem has been solved already with the rotating wing.

I haven't a clue how thousands of pounds of rapidly flapping metal could be deemed to be potentially safer than the Osprey, particulary given the sorts of mechanisms that would be required to drive them.

KFG

Re:Absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

The contractor involved and the armed forces instead outright lied through their teeth and ignored the problems while soldiers continued to die.

And the ornithopter, being a different design, clearly will not have this fault.