Human powered bird-plane, neat aviation first

[Sherlock]

Just caught this on a news broadcast, that a team from U of T (Toronto) has successfully built and flown a human-powered airplane with flapping wings, based on a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/864633 with a neat video...

 

[Gliderman8]

That's an awful lot of "input" for very little "output"... I'll stick with the glider.

 

[DrEntropy]

Fixed wing wins every time, Elliot.

 

[Sherlock]

I believe this was primarily a conceptual exercise, to see if they could do it, in the newscast they said that this aircraft isn't very practical in the real world...

 

[BabaKahawa]

Yes.. I'd rather built that then write a paper for my PhD.....

 

[martx-5]

I would have been more impressed if they would have used the wing flapping to get off the ground.

 

[Twosheds]

I would have been more impressed if they would have used the wing flapping to get off the ground.

It's hard for me to believe that the FAI would recognize a powered flight that begins with a tow.

 

[DNK]

John, I was pondering that too. How much of the flight could be contributed to the glide path?

 

[Twosheds]

John, I was pondering that too. How much of the flight could be contributed to the glide path?

From what little one can see in the video, it looks like he can maintain altitude for the flight. But common sense says that, to be considered a human-powered flight, the take-off, too, must be human-powered.

 

[Twosheds]

I just read another article on this from EAA. It contained this statement, which I don't remember from the Toronto newspaper article:

"It occurred on August 2, 2010, in Tottenham, Ontario, and a representative from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), keeper of world aeronautical records, was also present to witness the flight. FAI will determine by sometime in October if it did in fact set a record."

That may answer my question.