Man Flies Like A Bird Flapping His Own Wings..

Story from Gizmodo

Watch Dutch mechanical engineer Jarno Smeets take off and fly just by flapping wings of his own invention—like a real bird! It's uncanny.
Smeets developed the wings over an eight-month period. They use a special motion mechanism built around an Android phone and Nintendo Wii controllers. His system allows him to literally start flapping his arms to take off and keep flying.

This is absolutely amazing, and I'm left without words. I still would like to share this with ATS. I did a search and didn't find this story. I apologize if it has been posted already..

Fantastic!
Amazing!

It even says it was a hoax at the bottom of the page below the video.

That's why it's soo believable. It's an amazing viral video/hoax. Click to 1:51 and you'll see the camera goes down and the fades into another clip and then comes up and it's a CGI guy.

reply to post by OliArtist



Is this the part you're referring to? This wasn't part of the article, it was a comment left by someone who read the article and who thinks it's a hoax.

I want one!!!
We are getting closer and closer to personal flying machines.
This kind of technology makes me shed a manly tear. If it was not
for those exceptions in military all over the world I could say
technology is the best thing that has ever happened.

Good attempt but its never going to happen until he gets his bones replaced with lightweight material and i think he would have flown further without the flapping,it was just creating drag at that speed
Edit .. did you change the video? Thats not the video i watched

Originally posted by 12voltz
Good attempt but its never going to happen until he gets his bones replaced with lightweight material and i think he would have flown further without the flapping,it was just creating drag at that speed
Edit .. did you change the video?

edit on 20-3-2012 by 12voltz because: (no reason given)

I did change the video. I replaced it with the one from the article.
Here's the video I initially posted with my second post. This is also the video people are looking at and calling hoax:


Looks pretty legit to me..

reply to post by DISINFORMANT


I'd prefer to have pedal powered flight.

That just looks tiring.

Originally posted by 12voltz
Good attempt but its never going to happen until he gets his bones replaced with lightweight material and i think he would have flown further without the flapping,it was just creating drag at that speed

And to you have a background in flight mathematics to back this claim up? I'm pretty sure the wingspan/pilot weight ratio looks right... Have you ever seen a hang glider, or an ultralight airplane?

this seems to be a hoax. this might be possible, but birds don't flap their wings straight up and down, which would only serve to cancel the temporary lift. when birds flap, it's more like rowing. the forefront of the wings dip down as the bird pushes backwards, then straightens them up to bring forwards and down again.

a remade machine with smaller wings shaped in the right way and specialized joints that could rotate appropriately is needed for this to work. he should also have modified the interface of his hand flapping so that the wings moved a greater distance than his arms moved. the specialized rotating joints would be difficult, and designing the right wing to accompany it would probably require sophisticated cables and mechanisms to replicate the proper movements needed for flight.

reply to post by DISINFORMANT


When the wings go down they curve like flaps on a plane creating more lift ,but with more lift ,comes more drag and to overcome that you need more speed, to get more speed you need more power and or lighter weight.
Thats why hang gliders work and this wont .The energy spent flapping would be better used walking up a hill and jumping off.

I always wanted to try to make one of these. I think it would be possible using a pulley system but oh noes this guy beat me to it.

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAH I bet all you nubs calling this a hoax have 0 experiance with Visual Animation and have no right to try to debunk a legit video.....

FREAKEN AWESOME

Geez, what dismissive cynical punks we have become on ATS.
Great thread awesome find S&F.

Absolutely legitimate and actually naysayers,
a really big deal. Awesome OP, thank you.

This is gonna be huge.

reply to post by WanderingThe3rd

legit or not, he didn't fly, that's the real issue. one would think that he would've researched how birds actually flap their wings to fly...

Originally posted by 12voltz
reply to post by DISINFORMANT

 

When the wings go down they curve like flaps on a plane creating more lift ,but with more lift ,comes more drag and to overcome that you need more speed, to get more speed you need more power and or lighter weight.
Thats why hang gliders work and this wont .The energy spent flapping would be better used walking up a hill and jumping off.

More power? Your argument assumes you know how much power the unit produces.. How much MORE power is needed then?
Birds don't have to jump off a high place to take flight. And before you point out that birds weigh a lot less than a man.. Let me point out that they also have much shorter wingspans..

I'm open to the possibility that it's a hoax. I just haven't seen the evidence of it.

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by WanderingThe3rd

 

legit or not, he didn't fly, that's the real issue. one would think that he would've researched how birds actually flap their wings to fly...

Did you even watch the video? If it is legit, it is because he certainly did fly. If this isn't flight, what qualifies then?

reply to post by DISINFORMANT

of course i watched the video, he went a few feet. that isn't flying, he would have gone farther holding his arms out straight and jumping. research how birds flap and you'll understand how they fly.

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by DISINFORMANT

 

of course i watched the video, he went a few feet. that isn't flying, he would have gone farther holding his arms out straight and jumping. research how birds flap and you'll understand how they fly.

You must not have watched the video we're discussing...



If you can fly further than this by just jumping and flapping your arms, color me impressed..

reply to post by DISINFORMANT


yeah bud, he was above the tree's i'd be #ting myself, wind picks up the higher you get it must of been a calm day cause it was a pretty smooth run....

still i'd be pooping hes the man

EDIT:
everyone who thinks it's fake, look at the 13 video's about the making of of this..