"Falling ... with style"

[unixronin]

Cnews is reporting that a University of Toronto student has built and successfully flown a human-powered aircraft with flapping wings.

Look at the video, though.  It can't get airborne under its own power; it gets off the ground only by virtue of a cable tow from a vehicle.  According to the article,

[...] Reichert climbed aboard, flapped its

Comments

[perspicuity]

would human powered include say, a charging system pre-loaded? rubber bands, battery, other? or realtime power? cuz humans don't have enough of that given current materials (for flapping)...

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[unixronin]

Well, if you stretch the definition far enough, you can declare anything built by mankind to be human-powered.

Personally, I would say stored human muscle power would have to be considered cheating. Otherwise you could spend a year on a stationary bicycle charging up battery packs for your Honda Insight, then drive cross-country swapping out battery packs en route and call it human-powered.

If that means humans don't have enough muscle power for human-powered flapping flight in 1G? Well, sucks to be us. We can try it again when we have a colony on the Moon or Mars.

[perspicuity]

breed better humans?

or come up with some VERY interesting technology... i'm thinking dragonflies myself...

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[unixronin]

Really, I don't think it's possible for humans under Earth gravity. The square-cube law gets us. Mass increases faster than the cross-section of muscle bundles does. We might conceivably achieve birdlike flight some day, but no way in hell will we ever have the power-to-weight ratio for insectlike flight in full Earth gravity.

[johnkzin]

I wouldn't compare it to an optimized glider for the same height/distance. That would be a terrible "experimental control", because they're entirely different, aerodynamically.

I would compare it to the same craft, gliding without the flapping wings.

If it goes the same distance (within a margin of error) without regard to wings flapping or not, then it's inconclusive. If it goes further WITH the flapping wings, then the flapping wings are contributing. If it goes further WITHOUT the flapping wings, then the flapping wings are hindering.

[unixronin]

*nod* Sure. Of course, the test that probably can't practically be done is to see whether it goes further with the wings flapping, or with the wings fixed and without the added weight of the flapping mechanism. Because even if it goes further flapping than it does just gliding, if it glides further still without the flapping mechanism, then the flapping mechanism is still a net parasitic loss.

Your point of apples-to-oranges is taken; that's why I compared to Gossamer Condor, which could take off on its own under pilot muscle power only, climb to clear a 10' obstacle, fly a one-mile closed figure-eight course, then clear another ten-foot obstacle at the end of the course before landing. Snowbird appears to be unable to gain altitude under its own power, much less achieve flying speed without a tow.

[jhetley]

Our news report this morning confused "human-powered flight" with flapping flight -- first human-powered flight was decades back . . . and did include human-powered takeoff. As you note above.

Many early mechanically powered flights included catapult take-off.