First Human-Powered Ornithopter

spasm writes "A University of Toronto engineering graduate student has made and successfully flown a human-powered flapping-wing aircraft. From the article: 'Todd Reichert, a PhD candidate at the university's Institute of Aerospace Studies, piloted the wing-flapping aircraft, sustaining both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds and covering a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour.'"

Comments

Re:Why Still Pursuing This?

[iluvcapra]

“Though the aircraft is not a practical method of transport, it is also meant to act as an inspiration to others to use the strength of their body and the creativity of their mind to follow their dreams.”

There you go, it ain't much, but then again creativity is a pretty expensive and scarce commodity.

Re:Ornithoglider

[AshtangiMan]

I tend to agree. It looks like the max altitude (and perhaps speed) was reached just prior to releasing the tow cable. The flapping may have extended the glide, you can see the cockpit move up on the "flap" but it also sinks when the wings spring back up. I'm not sure what is being done is sustainable flight. I am glad they did this though, as it looks promising, and perhaps they will get to the sustainable flight goal.

Not that great...

[EkriirkE]

This is merely a glider, nothing more. The up-flap cancels out the down-flap as the wings appear to move vertically. All winged animals I'm aware of either twist their wings at angles or fold them, especially on the up-flap, so that most of the powered force is directed to pushing air under the wings on the down flap and the wing simply cuts through the air on the up flap.

Nothing new

[Deadstick]

...we've had flapping-wing aircraft for three-quarters of a century.

Birds flap their wings with a painfully inefficient reciprocating motion, because nature doesn't know how to make one critical component: a rotating joint. We do, so our wing-flappers flap their wings with nice, efficient rotary motion...and we call them helicopters.

rj

Re:Nothing new

[siddesu]

I've always wondered about bird vs. helicopter efficiency ... here's one guy's opinion.

http://mb-soft.com/public3/birdeff.html

If true, nature's "painfully inefficient reciprocating motion" leaves our "nice, efficient rotary motion" in the dust.

Re:Yes, the flapping is keeping it in the air

[ebuck]

Can you really tell from the video you can determine how long and far he could have flown without the "flapping wings". I would like to see a comparison of this machine with an ordinary glider launched with the same altitude and speed.

Or better yet, the same glider launched with the same altitude and speed, but without the flapping.

Re:Why Still Pursuing This?

[westlake]

Human powered flight will be necessary in the future because not everyone has oil and most people won't have access to petrochemicals to power their planes. However, flight consists of 3 aspects: take off, mid-flight manuevering, and landing safely

You forgot to mention useful, meaningful, range, payload and altitude.

The MIT Daedalus managed 71 miles over calm spring Mediterranean waters at 15 to 30 feet.

The Daedalus had its fleet of marine escorts.

But the fundamental reason for building an aircraft is to navigate over terrain - to be truly and freely airborne under ordinary conditions of wind and weather.

 

Re:Why Still Pursuing This?

[bill_mcgonigle]

There are a lot of things about rotor aircraft that until recently have been way too complex to model.

How recently? Are we due for a big advance in rotorcraft in the near future due to new understanding, or is this a "we finally know why aspirin works" kind of discovery?