Dutch birdman admits flight was filmic fantasy

What the adage - "It's easier to sell people a lie if it's one they dearly wish was true."

Apart from the fact that the film look as convincing as the more ropey animations in Jason and the Argonauts I can see why some were fooled.

But that's the problem Mr Reg. If your friends tell you about their dreams, you share them.

If they lie to you about their lives, you stop caring.

So as this was a stunt, a hoax and close to a con, I care so little about it. If it had been an open piece of art or interaction, I'd love it!

Stipe me.

Well. Ffs. Colour me surprised.

At least, he should've done in April.

oh that complete bastard - way to get my hopes up

No

No, it wasn't elaborate and it didn't look convincing. The guy wrote fiction on a blog for less than a year, and used special effects that, frankly, if he paid for, he should have gotten his money back, and suddenly every arm-chair physicist and aeronautical engineer with a YouTube account had to yell at everyone on the internet (or type with CAPS lock on) exclaiming that it was "So totally real you guys!"

Sometimes I wish the Earth would crash into the sun.

Flight

I congratulate the guy for making an effective, fun and entertaining video. It may have fooled a couple of Guardian readers, but noone who studied a science beyond the age of 12. Any fule know humans can't power flight in that way for the same reason birds have proportionatly huge chest muscles. Look at a pidgeon - breast muscles bigger then your biceps.

Unless your breast muscles are the size of a car, you're not flying anywhere, not by flapping.

Pick the right bird to mimic

I love how everyone's suddenly saying. Of course I knew it was a hoax. Where were you guys when the original article came out. Humans can't power flight like small birds which flap to fly, pidgeon, black bird, etc. But human powered flight is very possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRyyKQQtYqg

So the trick would be to emulate a bird like an albatross. That can't flap its wings very well either. Its a soaring bird that rides the air currents. I'm sure you could could up with a pair of wings to act like that.

I predict someone will make it true within two years

(Actually I think one year might be enough). First, background: in this article <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/09/23/the-first-ever-flight-of-a-pedal-powered-wing-flapping-vehicle/">http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/09/23/the-first-ever-flight-of-a-pedal-powered-wing-flapping-vehicle/</a> documents a successful human-powered ornithopter flight driven by a bicycle linkage. Human powered flight is using at best about 1.2 KW of power. So that is a reasonable minimum constraint. Let's use 3 KW as a reasonable minimum power-augmented system.

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation. I looked this up: a 2400 watt-hour lithium battery (cost $3000) weighs about 40 lbs. I don't know if they are the right kind, but 750 watt servo motors weigh about 7 lbs. each, so four of them would be about 30 lbs. Assume a wing span area similar to that of an ultralight (but probably a different shape) I figure another four smaller servo motors, so add another 30 lbs. for those plus miscellaneous wiring, controls, sensors, etc. for a total weight of about 100 lbs. plus that of the rider.

I assume that the control systems are just an engineering and software question. There are some interesting physics challenges in the framework to prevent the guy whose arms are stretched out from having them bent backwards and ripped from their sockets. But the ability to build an ornithopter airframe that carries 300 lbs. of rider-plus-power is essentially proven.

So, bottom line - this is a reasonable high school or college physics or engineering class exercise. I hope to see successful prototypes within a year or two, and commercial versions in another year or two. The movie maker was smarter than he knew - he has single-handedly invented, or at least inspired, a new sport. Within a few years folks will have perfected these systems to the point where birdlike flare landings and wing folding systems will be available.

Robot bird

Having seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkD4A0UvcrM

I didn't think it was completely unrealistic that a human could fly with some mechanical help.

Human-powered flight

Did this thing even claim to be human-powered flight?

I thought the flapping was just stated to be a (strange but pleasing) control mechanism.