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Science

Da Vinci's Ornithopter Prepares For a Test Flight 213

Posted by Hemos from the what-about-gurney-halleck dept.
Dirak writes "Over 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci conceptualized a self-powered flying machine that would achieve both lift and thrust with flapping wings alone and named it the "ornithopter". Hot on the heels of the 100th Anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight, and the recent X prize, a team of scientists from University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace have taken on this challenge to make Leonardo's dream a reality."
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Da Vinci's Ornithopter Prepares For a Test Flight More

Da Vinci's Ornithopter Prepares For a Test Flight

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  • Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by semifamous ( 231316 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:08PM (#10943100)
    I remember reading the Dune series a while back and I had to pull out a dictionary to look up what an ornithopter was. Wouldn't current technoloy be a lot more efficient?

    • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:22PM (#10943186)
      Handy things dictionaries. That's the last time I'll go to a ornithologist for a check-up!

    • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by moniker ( 9961 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:25PM (#10943202)
      from the site:

      However, the challenge of achieving both efficient lift and thrust with flapping wings was far greater than simply using the wings for lift and providing thrust with a separate propulsor.

      Isn't current technology all about brute forcing things? Efficiency takes time. It's easier to just throw power and money at a problem. Like the excellent example I saw somewhere about how Arches are more efficient, but most of our construction (except for bridges and the like) are based on stronger materials and shapes that aren't as likely to give us headaches.

      • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:44PM (#10943319)
        . . .are based on stronger materials and shapes that aren't as likely to give us headaches.

        Or backaches. You can make an arched bed from a sheet of quarter inch plywood. Very efficient use of materials, but you aren't likely to want to sleep on it, and efficiency in materials is not the most important parameter of a bed.

        Sometimes the shape itself is the most important factor. That's why domes never took off for personal housing. It's an efficient shape for everything but living in.

        You'll note that cars, boats and airplanes all use the arch extensively (the panels on your car all have at least a slight curve to them for a reason), because in the case of these structures efficient use of materials is a critical factor.

        And as it turns out seperate systems for thrust and lift in a flying machine are more efficient than using one system for both, that's why it's so hard to build an ornithopter and why aerotecnology didn't get "off the ground" until that was realized.

        The reason nature has adopted the flapping wing is simply because it cannot emulate a shaft unidirctionally rotating in a bearing in a biological structure, so it had to "make do."

        A wheel on an axle is notoriously more efficient than these "legs" things.

        KFG

        • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Merkuri22 ( 708225 ) <merkuri AT gmail DOT com> on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:51PM (#10943356)

          A wheel on an axle is notoriously more efficient than these "legs" things.

          Until you try to go up stairs. DARPA is working on building dog-like robots with legs to carry a soldier's gear. [wired.com] Wheels are good only on flat surfaces. Ever try to push a wheelchair up a rocky slope? They make wheelchair ramps for a reason. Sometimes nature DOES get it right.

          • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @01:02PM (#10943472)
            Oh, nature almost always "gets it right" within the parameters of the problem, or at least right enough to get the job done, which is not always the most efficient in engineering terms (the tail of the peacock works, in part, because it is not efficient).

            I did not in any way mean to denigrate the solutions that nature finds, only to point out that the solution set is inherently limited.

            An airplane only needs to fly, a duck has to perform many more functions (such as making more ducks), thus rigid wings may prove to be unworkable over all, despite the fact that the rigid wing is more efficient when one looks strictly at the issue of flying.

            However, thank you for your post. It has given me pause and I may have to go back and redsign my "most fearsome killing machine in the universe."

            KFG
            • Oh, and by the way, nature did come up with the "fixed wing" solution to flying. It's called a hawk. ;) Sparrows fly by flapping. Hawks sometimes fly by flapping, but have discovered the more efficient solution of gliding. However, when gliding a hawk isn't as maneuverable as the flapping sparrow, though it can go faster. So, in a way the flapping versus fixed wing methods differ the same way as the legs versus wheels method. One may be more efficient, but the other is more maneuverable (and may be a
              • Octopi have jet engines, just not ones that push air.

                The only thing that man has invented that I've not seen an equivalent of in nature is the CRT. No animal needs to project light on a screen, much less with a stream of electrons controlled by magnets. Unless you consider humans to be animals. ;)
                • You could argue that octopi, too, have that feature. They can change the color and pattern of their skin similar to the way we can change the color and pattern on a monitor. They even have pixels of a sort (I think, I only know a token amount about octopus biology). They just don't do it with electrons or produce their own light. There are, however, creatures in nature that produce their own light. If you loosen your definitions enough I bet you could find an equivalent of just about any technology in
                • How about the wheel? There are a few unicellular life forms that use rotary bearings for flagella, but I don't know of anything that uses a true wheel.
                • nature HAs made a "CRT." Those octopi can project all sorts of shapes of color across their bodies. It allows them to hide in the wide open...

          • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:4, Funny)

            by zx75 ( 304335 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @01:07PM (#10943522) Homepage
            What, you mean this 'wilderness' thing isn't flattened and paved?!? Bah, so much for equal opportunity and government mandated accessibility laws!

            • This just in: DARPA researches a new, improved robot that flattens and paves 'that wilderness thing' so soldiers can carry their own gear, and can't whine about it.

        • The flapping wings of a bird are the result in what is called a homologus structure, since they were once arms and nature needed an easy way to get them off the ground, it is far easier to evolve feathers sticking out of an arm than it is to evolve a propeller or a jet engine. Although it is apparant that our technology is not as efficient, having not evolved on the basis of energy concervation, with modern engineering it is possible that we could make something more efficeint.

          • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:2, Interesting)

            by kfg ( 145172 )
            . . .they were once arms and nature needed an easy way to get them off the ground, it is far easier to evolve feathers sticking out of an arm than it is to evolve a propeller or a jet engine.

            Indeed, the way nature aggregates parts is very different than the way a machine is aggregated out of parts. That's very much part of my point.

            Thus I'm not really sure it's possible to evolve a jet engine biologically, except as a pulse system (see octopus, and I don't see any reason why pulse wheels couldn't evolve,
          • An arm with feathers is not a wing. Not only does a bird's wing skeleton structure differ greatly from an arm, with greatly extended fanning "fingers", but there are several different sizes of feathers on a wing to form an aerodynamically suitable shape. Don't forget the stabilizing tail feathers, either. Oh yeah, and birds didn't really evolve their wings from "arm" structures, did they? That would indicate they came from primates instead of reptiles. So they came from legs - with very short, nealy-equal l

        • Nature HAS developed a rotating shaft in a bearing (Score:5, Informative)

          by xmark ( 177899 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:32PM (#10944461)
          (From the previous post...) "The reason nature has adopted the flapping wing is simply because it cannot emulate a shaft unidirctionally rotating in a bearing in a biological structure, so it had to make do."

          Au contraire. Mother Nature is one hell of an engineer. I remember reading about the design of bacterial rotary flagellae in Scientific American a few years back, and marvelling at the elegance of the motor.

          Here's [wikipedia.org] an article from Wikipedia that describes it pretty well (excerpted below).

          The filament is composed of the protein flagellin and is a hollow tube 20 nanometers thick. It is helical, and has a sharp bend just outside the outer membrane called the "hook" which allows the helix to point directly away from the cell. A shaft runs between the hook and the basal body, passing through protein rings in the cell's membranes that act as bearings.

          The bacterijjkklellum is driven by a rotary engine composed of protein, located at the flagellum's anchor point on the inner cell membrane. The engine is powered by proton motive force, i.e., by the flow of protons across the bacterial cell membrane due to a concentration gradient set up by the cell's metabolism (in Vibrio species the motor is a sodium ion pump, rather than a proton pump). The rotor transports protons across the membrane, and is turned in the process. The rotor by itself can operate at 6,000 to 17,000 rpm, but with a filament attached usually only reaches 200 to 1000 rpm.
        • The whole reason most people concentrate on normal flight is because it distils the problem down to the two basic problems and allows you to find the most efficient solution for both. You need lift and you need forward momentum. With lift, the simplest form is a fixed wing. With motion, an engine is readily at hand.

          The problem with recreating bird flight is that it's an exercise in finesse. With flapping, lift and momentum are achieved simultaneously in ONE mechanical motion with very complex real-ti
      • Except for the architecture of Antoni Gaudi. This is why Gaudi was considered revolutionary. All his architecture is based around efficiency and the shapes that would give the lightest structure to support what it had to support. It's all based around parabolas, hyperboloids and such like, which results in amazing organic looking buildings that are still very functional. Anybody who's been to Barcelona, Spain, will know what I mean.
      • "Isn't current technology all about brute forcing things? Efficiency takes time. It's easier to just throw power and money at a problem. Like the excellent example I saw somewhere about how Arches are more efficient, but most of our construction (except for bridges and the like) are based on stronger materials and shapes that aren't as likely to give us headaches."

        Ummm no not really. Most of current technology is about efficiency. Take airliners. They are getting more and more efficient all the time. Compu

    • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anne Honime ( 828246 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:27PM (#10943215)
      Wouldn't current technoloy be a lot more efficient?

      Probably, but you never know... plus carftsmen of the past had shared secrets which got mostly lost over time (blame wars, plague, etc.) as how to build very light and yet solid structures out of wood (and eventually, stone). Think about european cathedrals. Most of them were made without any blueprint. That's truely wonderful. Re-building a working replica sometimes is the only way to go to get back that knowledge. I once saw a documentary on our Discovery channel's sibbling, about the making of a middle-age catapult. The first real life attempts broke themselves into pieces until they managed to understand archeological evidences and set all ratios back to what they once were, and then put the thing on wheels which were not used to carry the weapon around (as was unanimously beleived), but to handle the recoil. Then, they achieved pretty nice accuracy out of what was thought to be a primitive device.

    • Re:Yesterday's tomorrow? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Chundra ( 189402 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:41PM (#10943294)
      Yeah, current technology would probably be a lot more efficient, but that's missing the point. You know, that point where they're building Da Vinci's contraption devised hundreds of years ago. ;)

      But as far as current technology goes, I've seen some people flying a commercial looking RC ornithopter at a park, and it, while not "real", was pretty cool darn cool.

    • From TFA:
      The expediency of the ornithopter model as it approaches efficiency will outperform fixed wing aircraft, and will be seen as the natural evolution in flight technology.

  • About time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlueThunderArmy ( 751258 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:10PM (#10943111) Homepage
    Wow, I'm actually rather shocked nobody's tried this before. It's a famous bit of trivia that da Vinci "invented" the helicopter, it was only a matter of time (~500 yrs) before somebody set his theories into practice.

    • Re:About time (Score:5, Interesting)

      by semifamous ( 231316 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:12PM (#10943124)
      They have tried it. Lots of people tried making planes that flew by flapping their wings instead of using flaps and rudders to control their direction. You'll generally find clips of these attempts in the comedy section...

      • Re:About time (Score:2, Funny)

        by Wiseazz ( 267052 )
        They tried and failed?

        They tried and died.

        Sorry... just trying to keep up the obvious Dune undertones.
      • The problem as I see it is of mass versus power. It seems that as the size of the organizm is increased linearly the power required for propulsion is increased as a sqare or a cube of size increase. That is why a lot of mosquitos (or any small insects) fly and not too many elephants (large animals) do. If someone would simply resize a mosquito 100x its legs would break and won't even be able to hold its body weight let alone fly. That is why elephants have much thicker legs in proportion to their body as o
    • Right, and many sci-fi authors "invented" orbital space flight. It was only a matter of time before the Russians and Americans set those theories into practice. Of course, having theories is easy... the practical application of those theories is what distinguishes a sound invention from a bad one. Throw enough high-tech materials and propulsion at any poor rocket design, and I'm sure you could eventually get that into orbit too.

      • Re:About time (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anne Honime ( 828246 )
        Right, and many sci-fi authors "invented" orbital space flight.

        Kepler did. In Dissertatio cum nuncio sidero, if memory serve.

        I'm a true fan of J. Kepler, perhaps the most brilliant mind of all times.

    • More information here [ornithopter.org].

      According to them [ornithopter.org], if successful this would be the second successful manned flight of an ornithopter, the first having taken place in 1995 in Russia in Vladimir Toporov's ornithopter, Giordano [ornithopter.org].

  • First encounter with an Ornithopter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by flogger ( 524072 ) <non@nonegiven> on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:13PM (#10943129) Journal
    this [magictrade.dk] was my first encounter with an Orithopter. ;-)
  • they've final got around to starting

  • Some limitations that have to be worked out (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:14PM (#10943137)
    Currently, only pilots made of balsa wood can fly this thing.

  • Buy your own right now. (Score:5, Informative)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:15PM (#10943138)
    We have one of these toy ornithopters [kitestailstoys.com] and it flies quite nicely. Its use of a leading-edge rigid spar and loose mylar wing material make the wing form a semi-efficient shape on both the up and down stroke.
    • The problem with scaling that sort of ornithopter up is that the wing shape is capable of generating thrust, but not lift. The only reason it's able to stay in the air is that it flies in a strongly nose-up attitude, using thrust to overcome gravity.

  • Name Change (Score:2, Funny)

    by inKubus ( 199753 )
    It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's an Or-ni-thop-ter!

    Doesn't make for much good comedy. They should get Paul McCarthney as a test pilot and call it "Wings". Ha. Sorry.

    I don't think it will work. I think that the human power to weight ratio is too small to move enough air at sea level to lift a body. Regardless of any magical gearing or lever action..

  • Whaa? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:19PM (#10943164)
    Why bother even casting it? Sure, it's 0 Mana, but it's still a 0/2 Flying Artifact. Give me a break. What are you gonna do? Enchant it? Oooh, don't hurt me.

    Oh wait, you mean in real life. Ahhhh.... *whistling*

    • Re:Whaa? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by hibiki_r ( 649814 )
      Belive it or not, Ornithopter was used last year in pretty competitive decks. The fact that they've recently printed lands that also count as artifacts, lots of cheap artifacts and this monstrosity [playordraw.com] helps.
    • Affinity... Or Glimpse of Nature... Or... :p 0cc artifact creatures are funny ;)
    • Enduring Renewal + Ashnod's Altar, anyone?

    • Re:Whaa? (Score:3, Informative)

      by swv3752 ( 187722 )
      It is more useful to block those annoying 1/1 creatures. Ever lost a game because of a Scryb spryte?

      You don't need to enchant it, as there are other ways to encrease the power such as Tawno's Weaponry.
    • Actually I was thinking of using Tangleroot + Equilibrium to build up an arbitrarily large storm count before casting Brain Freeze...

  • Efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nathan s ( 719490 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:19PM (#10943165) Homepage
    Pardon my engineering ignorance, but is this any more efficient than the current style of pulling a fixed-wing craft through the air with a separate engine? My gut instinct says no, but I've been suprised before. Thoughts?

  • Is it going to work THIS time? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:21PM (#10943174)
    Back in September, they tried to make it work but it didn't get very far at all... [slashdot.org]

  • odd... (Score:2)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 )
    prepares for test flight??

    Come on, every aircraft invented has hat at least a propulsion test and even models tested WAY before they do a real test.

    so this thing works well then? how did the first tests go? how about video fo the RC prototypes they used to test to see if the thing was workable or a clever way of spending money foolishly?
    • From the site: [ornithopter.net]

      The Project Ornithopter engine-powered piloted aircraft, which is based on the technology of the Harris/DeLaurier model, self accelerated (flapping alone) on level pavement to lift-off speed.

  • Leonardo, not Da Vinci (Score:5, Informative)

    by bickle ( 101226 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:23PM (#10943190)
    The proper name to use is "Leonardo", or "Leonardo Da Vinci", not "Da Vinci". That's like referring to someone as "of Dallas".

  • Possible use? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 )
    Now we'll finally have a vehicle suitable for tracking spice miners on Arrakis.

  • This group has tried before, IIRC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:32PM (#10943242) Homepage Journal
    The machine nearly shook itself to pieces. Since the attempt was covered by Slashdot, I'm surprised no posters have mentioned the earlier attempt. If they've fixed the structural issues, this should be a fascinating demonstration.


    Yes, "modern" technology is more efficient, but this does a great deal to teach us about structural engineering in highly unconventional designs. I doubt Ornithopters will ever be popular (except maybe as a sideshow at larger fairs and airshows) but as a case study for engineers... It would be superb!


    Engineers at schools, colleges and even some Universities tend to build "nice, safe" projects. Stuff that teaches you how to bolt things together - if you're lucky. A good project should be hard enough that engineers are going to fail at least once, because you learn far more by failing - and more again by catching problems before they turn into failure.


    It is obvious now that Ornithopers are hard engineering problems. As such, even if they have no other value, they would make superb educational devices.


    Inventions like this are never wasted - only opportunities can be wasted.

    • Re:This group has tried before, IIRC (Score:4, Interesting)

      by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:46PM (#10943330)
      I doubt Ornithopters will ever be popular (except maybe as a sideshow at larger fairs and airshows) but as a case study for engineers... It would be superb!

      The main interest in ornithopters today is in Micro Air Vehicles- small (~6 inches) military reconnaissance robots. Incidentally, the aerodynamics of flapping flight at small sizes are very different from those of aircraft. Insects use lots of weird mechanisms, such as the ability to generate high lift with leading edge vortices.

      • Re:This group has tried before, IIRC (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:07PM (#10944210) Homepage Journal
        Exactly. And while a lot is known about both theory and practice of conventional aircraft wings, rather less is known about, say, insect wings. It's only recently that people started putting butterflies in wind-tunnels, for example. And those are vastly simpler than, say, a dragonfly, which can hover or fly backwards perfectly well.


        Our understanding of larger animals isn't a whole lot better. Sure, we know the muscles involved in a hummingbird's amazing flying abilities, or those of kestrals. (Again, both of these can hover and fly backwards.) We can run simulations on computers to see air-flow. Well, if you happen to have a spare super-computer in the attic, that is.


        But the actual mechanics of such systems? To the point where an engineer could go out and build a duplicate? Even a small robotic device, such as the spy drones you mentioned? Maybe, but I'd be impressed if they could achieve a fraction of the efficiency of nature, at this point, or a fraction of the aerodynamic flexibility.


        Even if the DoD or some other TLA'ed Government agency could do it, I believe that these are perfect engineering problems for all engineers at all educational levels, precisely because of the "weird mechanisms" involved. Low-altitude hot air balloons are trivial. Straight-wing gliders are nearly trivial, once you know the shape of an aerofoil.


        Insects and some of the stranger birds... Ah, now that kind of engineering is really tough.

      • The main interest in ornithopters today is in Micro Air Vehicles- small (~6 inches) military reconnaissance robots. Incidentally, the aerodynamics of flapping flight at small sizes are very different from those of aircraft. Insects use lots of weird mechanisms, such as the ability to generate high lift with leading edge vortices.

        That's actually an entomopter, because it is based on insects, as you mentioned, rather than on birds.
    • I think the main problem is that this craft has no feathers. On a bird's wing, the feathers act like a one way valve, letting air through the wing on the upstroke, and blocking it on the downstroke. Without some sort of mechanism for letting the air through, the wing will push the craft down on the upstroke by as much as it pushes it up on the downstroke.
  • I remember seeing something on TV regarding old designs by such people as DV. The Scientists made a few design modifications and hey presto it failed... However when they went back to the original designs they found the the devices worked as intended by the designer. I also recall reading something of one such designer where; not wanting the devices to be used for "evil"; built a very simple but obvious design flaw in to each one. Sorry about being so vaugue

  • Errors in the sketches? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can remember reading somewhere (probably in the "Da Vinci Code"-book) that he used to write down errors in his sketches on purpose. Is this what's causing problems when trying to realise his plans?

  • Inventer? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gninnor ( 792931 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:42PM (#10943306)
    Leonardo did not invent this concept. Childern of the day had toy heleecopter like devices. He did, however, have many additional innovations that were remarkable. It is sad how his innovations in so many feilds are over shadowed by his atributed inventions.

  • Insect Flight = More efficient... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yoho_jones ( 626889 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @12:43PM (#10943310)
    I remember seeing a program talking about how insect flight is much more efficient than traditional methods... Something about the downstroke of the wing creating a vacume that pulls it back up.
    Might have been another ether induced hallucination though... Ah Poppin Fresh...
    • Well, airplanes also create some kind of vacuum on the top side of their wings.

      Above the wing, the air has a longer path to go through than the air under the wing, and so is going faster, hence a lower pressure. (i.e some kind of vacuum). This somewhat pulls the plane up.
    • I remember seeing a program talking about how insect flight is much more efficient than traditional methods... Something about the downstroke of the wing creating a vacume that pulls it back up.

      Not sure. I've heard that the physics behind flys and bees are pretty impressive. I'd be even more impressed with something the size of a whale flying by flapping its wings.

      There is a big difference between the mass of an insect, or for that matter the largest flying animal (a condor, I would guess) and the mass

    • Re:Insect Flight = More efficient... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mks180 ( 442267 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:33PM (#10944467)
      The method employed by an orthithopter to generate lift and propulsive force is very different than what an insect uses. This is how I understand it: because of the small Reynolds numbers or ratio between the aerodynamic forces and inertial forces of the wings, the air seems a lot more viscous to an insect. It doesn't produce lift in a traditional sense that a bird or an airplane does. As its wings flap, the motion generates a vortex and the spinning motion of the air produces low pressure inside the vortex. During each stroke of a wing, the flapping motion of the insect is such that the vortex moves across the upper surface of the wing. This vortex imparts a large pressure differential between the lower and upper surface. At the scale of an insect, the amount of lift produced is much larger than what you could produce by having a stationary wing with an airfoil-type cross-section. But it doesn't efficiently scale up to anything larger than a humming bird, at least not in air. You'd need a denser, probably more viscous gas/fluid. I've seen mineral oil used as a medium to study mechanical equivalents of insect wings since it's density and viscosity lets you slow down the time scale.
      I've been to a presentation by the professor in charge of the ornithopter program. They did some amazing research to figure out how to make this concept work. It has to do with correctly coupling the elastic flapping motion of the wings with twisting motion. But unlike an insect, lift is produced by the forward motion of the aircraft, just like in a normal airplane. The thrust is produced by the flapping and twisting motion pushing the air back.
      • Which is the reason that you'll see whales flying through the water using their fins. The Reynold's Number is high enough to allow movement using fins, but low enough that lift can be sustained using those same fins.

        For a smaller Reynold's number example, the cuttlefish's method of propulsion is a good one. It uses a long fin and creates a wave-like modeshape using the fin. That wave-like mode transfers momentum very well to the surrounding water because of the scale that the fin operates at. To get

  • Already been built. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Takkuri ( 806654 )
    A television programme (I think it was entitled The DaVinci Challenge) aired on the Australian Special Broadcasting Service earlier this year, in which two teams built and tested DaVinci's ornothopter (and some other machines of his) using materials only available in Ol' Leo's time.
  • The expediency of the ornithopter model as it approaches efficiency will outperform fixed wing aircraft

    Ideas borrowed from nature almost always bring about an improvement in performance. This article [greenmarketing.com] discusses how we can incorporate design ideas from nature and some ideas already borrowed , and thus portrays their superiority in general

  • Evil despots of the world beware (Score:3, Funny)

    by rumblin'rabbit ( 711865 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @01:14PM (#10943603) Journal
    Wait till the Royal Canadian Air Force gets hold of this. It'll catapult them from the middle ages into the 15'th century.
  • Hmm... even if flapping wings are more effective than fixed wings, they can't scale too well or there would be more large flying things about, no?
    • Like the 40-foot Pterodactyl [paleodirect.com] for instance?

      Granted, it's no longer out and about, but assuming the paleontologists aren't way off base, the remains of those creatures do say something about the scalability of wing flapping.

  • I've seen this thing on Discovery before (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asoap ( 740625 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:16PM (#10944299)
    I've seen this thing on Daily Planet. It's a Discovery Canada science news show. They did a little piece on this thing. When I saw it like 4 months ago, the thopter was almost ready to get off the ground. The showed it running down the runway, and it was bouncing off the ground. As the wings came down, it would actually pull the wheels up, and as the wings went up, the wheels came down. It was pretty funny, but you could tell that this thing just needed a little more balls to get into the air.

    Also when they interviewed the professor, he was saying that a thopter could potentionally be much more manuverable then a traditional air plane, which was one of the reasons why he was building it.

    -Derek

  • O c'mon! (Score:4, Funny)

    by SlashDread ( 38969 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:17PM (#10944306)
    If God intended creatures to fly, He would have given them flappy thingies to.. oh.. nevermind

  • Birdy (Score:3, Informative)

    by JPyObjC Dude ( 772176 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @02:50PM (#10944643)
    If anybody remembers the movie Birdy, there was a scene early in the movie where the main character lets a elastic powered ornithopter go in a class room. What an awesome site to see that little guy fly.

    If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it and the soundtrack is based on one of Peter Gabriels better albums.

    Regarding UofT project, I hope these guy's succeed. I'm pretty sure that materials have gotten strong and light enough to enable full size models but... very very expensive! I hope they bring a parachute ;]

  • This is incorrect! (Score:4, Informative)

    by THESuperShawn ( 764971 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @03:43PM (#10945236)
    From the FA..."However, until now, most attempts to fly by flapping wings, either using human muscle or mechanical power have failed." OK, argue "most" with me if you want, but..... There are readily available R/C kits that do just this. I am not talking about those stupid "TIM" birds that you wind up and they flap around like they are having a seizure, I mean a real "R/C ORNITHOPTER". Here is a link to videos of one of the MANY models available. http://www.jgrc.biz/en-us/pg_25.html While the full-size project is definately cool, I think they are overstating it a bit. This design HAS been made mechanically possible well before now.
  • In case you haven't seen the flightgear [flightgear.org] flight simulator project, now's the time. In addition to being more accurate in a lot of aspects than any other PC-based flight simulation programs available to the general public, as well as being a popular research platform for aviation-related folks, it features a lot of exotic aircraft, including the model of the ornithopter. The ornithopter team folks, featured in TFA, collaborate with the flightgear project, and AFAIU the computer simulations mentioned in the TF
  • I have a better idea. See I've made these wings out of wax. So far I've only had one problem with them . . . . :)

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