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Another Ornithopter Takes Off
mnmn writes "Ornithopters have been around for a while, but a professor at the Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies has made progress with his. It flew for 14 seconds and covered a third of a kilometer. However it landed with a bit of a crash. Interestingly it uses a glow jet turbine from RC aircraft."
As far as I was aware model jet turbines run on Kerosene, just like their bigger brethren. Glow fuel is Nitromethane mixed with a lubricant such as Castor or Synthetic oil.
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
Someone flapping about something worthwhile!
Task Mangler
Cool!!! Can't wait for those charter flights to America on Boing Ornithopters... I wonder what kind of drinks they offer...
Omgili - Find out what people are saying.
I wonder if one problem is birds wings, while they do flap, they do not have a rigid shape, they change shape durring flight.
I wonder if an ornithopter could work with a wing that could change it shape slightly.
of course I am still not sure, is there an advantage to an ornithopter or is it just a curiosity thing?
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces -- Murphy's Law of Poker
These things really didn't help Paul.
in my MTG deck. 0/2 creatures with flying. I never knew they actually worked. I thought they were some crackpot invention that didn't really fly and was a MTG joke.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
My friend invented a flapping paper airplane 20+ years ago in junior high. Of course it's not nearly the same, since it reacts to pressure fluctuations instead of creating them. There are (pdf) instructions so anyone can be an ornithoptrix.
Am I the only one that thought of Magic: The Gathering when they read the title?
A slashdot article that is
1) Interesting
2) NOT and infomercial or astroturf
3) Has a paragraph to page ratio of greater than 2
4) Has some modicum of detail
5) Not about SCO, Apple, Google or Mr. Bill
Congrats. Of course, the signal to noise ratio is still painfully small. But it's a start.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
My friend had been an engineer on the flapper project for years and it was only recently that the booster was added. As far as I understand, the wings do flex and have successfully propeled the plane on the runway to significant (~60kph) speeds without need for a boost, however, the plane kept oscillating into the ground. More than one interesting test day was the result. All I can say is "congratulations" to those on the flapper team...its been a long time coming. :) (I hope there will be an alumni party for those who have put so much effort into this project over the years.)
The professor's website is being hammered by us, so I've only got the Star article to go from. "The R/C turbine provides thrust to get up to takeoff speed, at which point the flapping wings take over." I didn't see mention of a secondary propulsion means that causes the wings to flap. Electric motor? Pedal power? Briggs & Stratton? I'm curious how much horsepower it takes to keep his bird aloft. Anyone know?
He did it just for the record. I mean, take a local news reporter and a camera man, construct something utterly impossible and be sure to name the thing properly, then ride it, make the news and you've gotten yourself a history record and maybe a Slashdot news entry too.
I doubt anybody would like to sponsor it. As everyone is working on getting things cleaner, this seems like a feul gusler.
Nobody should stop dreaming though, they should open a donation page and print names on the wings!
Anything like a BIRDS wings, and not aerodynamic lifting bodies, I might have been impressed.
I cannot see how this would even qualify as a ORNIT-anything. Color me skeptical, but it could have
been just luck the contraption went anywhere at all. Flapping aerodynamic wings must have been fighting
the lifdthe wings naturally gave the craft.
Calling PURE , UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT over here. Blue ribbion winner!
Makes me think of the old game Ladder, platform jumper using all ascii. Played that one on a Kaypro.
damaged by dogma
...are more interesting!
sniff... sniff...
It flew for 14 seconds [...] However it landed with a bit of a crash
Is that their server being slashhunted that they're talking about ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Only a few comments, a nice sunday afternoon with no people at home and the site is already gone? I fear Slashdot. I really do.
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
this is old news, ornithopters have been around for years.
Since magic the gathering 5th edition as i recall.
Now THAT is news for nerds.
I know this may initially seem like a silly thing for people to build, but don't be fooled. Just as helicopters and airplanes have both found their niche, it is possible that ornithopters could one day fill another one. The fact that such a large one can fly even for a short amount of time is truly remarkable.
Sorry but if you had taken the time to RTFA instead of looking for a witty way to take a stab at the editors then you would have noticed that the article WAS about Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill was thier first remote controlled ornithopter. Maybe not the Mr. Bill you're referring to but Mr. Bill none the less. So you've violated your point #5 allowing ME to find that witty way to stab at the editors thusly proving they still are asshats. Thanks for the assist!!
There are already small-scale (miniature compared to this) radio-controlled ornithopters that seem to fly every bit as well as a normal electric parkflyer. The problem is scaling the idea up. What makes this version somewhat revolutionary is that fact that it is full scale. The forces that the various parts of an ornithopter would experience when the flapping motion is occurring are pretty great, yet the materials have to be light-weight. Sounds like this flight was a complete success, despite the crash at the end. A sheer wind can cause problems for even the largest conventional airplane. This plane is also interesting in that it is human-powered, with assistance from a 60-lb thrust jet turbine. Whether or not an ornithopter is anything more than a curiosity remains to be seen. I doubt we'll be seeing jetliner-scale onithopters ever. The efficiency of the conventional design is so great at large scales that I doubt it will ever be beaten by a flapper. On the other hand, perhaps advances in materials will someday allow flying human-powered flappers to become a sport like bicycling.
"There's snakes on the motherf*cking ornithopter!"
"But this one goes to 11!"
There are three posts describing what glow fuel is, they are all somewhat different, and they are all modded to 4 or 5 points as either informative or insightful. Who is the winner?
And is this post funny, insighful, informative, or is it just off topic?
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Incidentally, you can buy some pretty neat ornithopter kits from www.ornithopter.org. I'm not affiliated or anything, just interested in flapping-wing flight and experimenting on a small scale.
The development of flapping wing flight is interesting because it can also have other applications. I am especially interested in the use of 'flapper' designs in water craft (specifically for use in robotics). An interesting use of similar tech can be seen in these kayaks. Intersting stuff.
The difference between flapping birds and rotary winged aircraft is fundamental. Don't get the two confused.
Fixed and rotary winged aircraft are built the way they are because it is easy, not because it is the most efficient. Don't confuse those either.
If you had actually RTFWikipediaA, you would know that birds' flight is actually more energy efficient than aircraft. Don't confuse practicality with perfection.
Precisely. We already have flapping-wing aircraft, and they fly much more efficiently than birds because we know how to make a rotating joint and nature doesn't. Consequently we flap with economical rotary motion instead of energy-wasting reciprocating motion.
There's a project at Boeing to create a hummingbird-like propulsion system. It says, "Flapping flight may be the wave of the future for aviation." Their system relies on a shape-memory-metal actuator muscle. I'm forgetting at the moment who but there was another group recently that had a big announcement about simulating muscle with shape memory metal systems.
Obviously this is still R&D, but flapping doesn't seem to be down and out just yet. (BTW, I looked it up and a hummingbird wing is just shy of 180 degree rotation with 75% of the lift from the downstroke and 25% of the lift from the upstroke). Energy consumption is high, so portable fusion generators might be a necessary prerequisite for heavy craft.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I have seen videos of this beast before, and the one thing I do not understand is why does this have a solid wing? On the downstroke, a bird's feathers lock together to prevent the air from getting through, resulting in a large surface. On the upstroke, the feathers twist open to let the air through the wing, effectively cutting down on the wing surface. The feathers act like a one way valve.
This plane, though, has a solid wing. On the downstroke, the plane will get pushed up, but on the upstroke, the plane will be pushed down by the same amount. The thing would fly a lot better if they put a bunch of (if you'll pardon the pun) flapper valves along the surface of the wing.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
then you must be downright terrified of digg ;-)
The largest birds, for example condors and albatrosses, spend almost all their time as fixed-wing gliders riding thermals. And even a Cessna 180 is bigger than a condor.
This technology is for tiny and covert unmanned aircraft.
The use of jets to give it a boost up to takoff speed is also highly questionable. Even if they cut the jets before liftoff, it may be sort of like a slingshot launch, which isn't really sustained flight either.
It's still cool anyway, and it looks like they're pretty close.
Granted my only experience is with 5% nitromethane .10 cc RC truck. But MAN that sucked! Sure it was fast and had more power than most electrics...wait no it didn't. JTFC was that a mess. Rig up something to pump the tank full. Make sure it's completely everything proof because this glow fuel will disolve just about anything. Then you get to use a glow plug warmer. Make sure the mixture is just right, click it wide open, no too far, click it back. Pull the miniscule pull start, repeat forever. YEAH! it cranked ....and now its warm you're flooding it! lean it out! Ok you're good, go have your exhaust pressure fuel pump based fun on mostly level surfaces for the next 15 minutes.
Oh, out of gas. Quick sprint to it and fill it up without catching anything on fire. Crank it fast!...too late 2 seconds was the incorrect answer. Get your glowplug warmer, richen it up some. Crank Crank It's alive again. repeat. Until you've pulled slightly too hard and broke the "one way" bearing on the pull start. Take the engine completely apart, fix said bearing. repeat.
Maybe I'm an idiot but that wasn't any fun at all. Also an ornithopter is freaking stupid. C'mon a plane that flaps its wings? There's a website for that? This is on slashdot?
All we need are some giant mutated worms (courtesy of an Indian-Pakistani nuclear war) and a few more years of global warming, and we can have our very own Arrakis!
Semuta or Holzman effect shields would have been much cooler....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I don't see what all the flap is about....
First off, IANAME (Math Expert) but I think your formula is a little flawed.
I'm going to make a couple of assumptions for easy of computations.
#1 Your Corolla won't get 37-40 with 5 people in it, but for sake of argument, I'm going to say 35 even.
#2 When comparing effiency, you need to take into account travel time.
If your car travels for 10 hours at 70 MPH burning fuel at a rate of 35 MPG, you've travelled 700 miles on 20 gallons of gas, or, 4 gallons per passenger.
If you ride a 747 the same distance, 650 MPH for 1.077 hours, on 4031.211 gallons of full, you've travelled 700.05 miles at 6.8 Gallons per passenger.
Right off the bat, your comparison does indeed show your Corolla as more efficient, *HOWEVER*, the Jet moved you nearly 1000% faster at only a 1.7% fuel consumption increase.
By that argument, you could state the 747 is indeed far more efficient than your car.
The bicycle. That's right. It's the humble human powerd bicycle.
for your completly unbiased information.
Please, get some scientific data by a source that you are not related to.
Because my son did quite a nice paper(which I might add was very impressive and detailed), on how ducks would be better if they sun beams out of there eyes, and my daughter, who partnered with him on this paper, also said the pink ducks are better. Both agreed the jets were better because they looked neat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Did anyone else notice that the flight lasted about the same time as that of the Wright Brothers' aircraft at Kitty Hawk?
quia potentia mens mentis