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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Fly Like an Eagle

Fly Like an Eagle

by John Cole|  March 20, 201210:59 pm| 49 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

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This is amazing:

Take that, Icarus.

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Previous Post: « What’s puzzling you is the nature of my game
Next Post: By request, a profound ideas thread »

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)

    March 20, 2012 at 11:05 pm

    Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines,

  2. 2.

    Joseph Nobles

    March 20, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    Some people will do anything to avoid the TSA.

  3. 3.

    Comrade Mary

    March 20, 2012 at 11:07 pm

    Huh. The first time I ever saw this (in black and white), it didn’t work out too well.

    The crazy Dutch guy is blogging about it here. The wings use Wii controllers, apparently.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 20, 2012 at 11:07 pm

    WANT.

    Yes I am nearly 70 but damn, I would love to do that.

  5. 5.

    mai naem

    March 20, 2012 at 11:09 pm

    I wanna do that.

  6. 6.

    Uncle Cosmo

    March 20, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    Well, I had the language narrowed down to Swedish & Dutch before I got to the website, but I was leaning toward the former–just seems the sort of half-genius, half-whackjob thing a Svensker would undertake… Now if he’d only delivered one of those throat-destroying Dutch sccccccch sounds…

  7. 7.

    Comrade Mary

    March 20, 2012 at 11:11 pm

    Lots of people are crying fake, but I don’t have the expertise to figure it out. Something similar was done in Toronto, too, a few years ago.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 20, 2012 at 11:11 pm

    @General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):

    Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines

    Curse you, General Stuck! Now I’m going to have that as an earworm all.night.long.

    Only a photo of Charlie will assuage my fury.

  9. 9.

    Warren Terra

    March 20, 2012 at 11:13 pm

    If Nintendo or Google has a lick of sense, they’ll bung him a few dollars, maybe fly him and his gear to their neck of the world for a visit – apparently he is controlling his rig using Wii controllers and an Android phone.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    March 20, 2012 at 11:14 pm

    Woo hoo! – but I bet you need wicked strong arms for the flapping, no?

    Honestly, stuff like this makes me teary-eyed. Just when it seems like the greater mass of humanity would be better used as ballast or fertilizer, something like this comes along and I feel less hopeless about my species.

    Thanks, John!

  11. 11.

    Warren Terra

    March 20, 2012 at 11:19 pm

    @CaseyL:

    Woo hoo! – but I bet you need wicked strong arms for the flapping, no?

    It’s not human-powered flight: he’s using motors. But then, he’s some 30ish to 40ish guy with a dream, a tiny budget, and engineering skills; I’d not be surprised if using modern, expensive materials a similar performance could be achieved by a sufficiently athletic person, using pulleys rather than motors.

  12. 12.

    Comrade Mary

    March 20, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    Some numbers, graphs and more arguments at Wired.

    @CaseyL: No kidding! My shoulders were aching just looking at it. They need some teeny 95 pound rock climber as their test pilot, as she would be light enough to allow for more lift than some 150-pound man, but still have enough upper body strength and endurance for the flapping flapping flapping.

  13. 13.

    freelancer

    March 20, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    I wanna see Adam and Jamie do a Mythbusters on this.

  14. 14.

    catclub

    March 20, 2012 at 11:35 pm

    there is a relevant xkcd:
    all the worlds where intelligent things learn to fly never develop calculus. (approximately)

  15. 15.

    taylormattd

    March 20, 2012 at 11:37 pm

    I need those.

  16. 16.

    jl

    March 20, 2012 at 11:37 pm

    Amazing. Thanks very much for the clip of the …

    Flying Dutchman, har har.

    But this flying dutchman is not as spooky.

    Also too, I think this is an excellent fitness club project for JG Cole (his sis could probably do it easy as snap as soon as she figured out how the contraption works, so she does not count). I eagerly await the report.

  17. 17.

    catclub

    March 20, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    xkcd 0962 The Corliss Resolution

  18. 18.

    jl

    March 20, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    @Warren Terra: But I don’t think the motors do all the work, or do they?

  19. 19.

    feebog

    March 20, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    He may use motors to augment, but he was obviously flapping his arms as well. Man with a dream, this Buds for you.

  20. 20.

    Keith

    March 20, 2012 at 11:47 pm

    Also, take that, Da Vinci.

  21. 21.

    Warren Terra

    March 20, 2012 at 11:54 pm

    @jl:
    @feebog:
    He was flapping his arms to move the Wii controllers. I’m not sure if any work was transferred from his arms. There’s no overview on his site, so far as I can see.

  22. 22.

    Jess

    March 21, 2012 at 12:11 am

    So late 19th century!

    I love that he kept describing it as “lekker” (literally delicious, but applied to anything wonderful that defies description).

  23. 23.

    Daaling

    March 21, 2012 at 12:15 am

    @CaseyL: If any of you took the time to follow the links you would find it’s powered by an electric motor. His hands flapping basically just control the speed using the motion sensors in an android phone and wii controller. His hands don’t actually do any work.

  24. 24.

    penpen

    March 21, 2012 at 12:27 am

    Guys the collective lack of skepticism being shown towards this video is giving me a sad… where is Tom Levenson when you need him

  25. 25.

    Wag

    March 21, 2012 at 12:28 am

    Now this is what I call flying. Or maybe falling with style…

  26. 26.

    Wag

    March 21, 2012 at 12:28 am

    Now this is what I call flying. Or maybe falling with style…

  27. 27.

    Wag

    March 21, 2012 at 12:31 am

    And now for Icarus

  28. 28.

    Comrade Mary

    March 21, 2012 at 12:36 am

    If you want a different kind of flying, there’s always paravulturing. Fun when everyone knows their place, less fun when participants get confused.

  29. 29.

    Wag

    March 21, 2012 at 12:39 am

    …and here’s another one, even better than the first one

  30. 30.

    Randiego

    March 21, 2012 at 1:38 am

    Just flew in from Chicago – and boy are my arms tired. Ba dum bump.

  31. 31.

    Bago

    March 21, 2012 at 1:47 am

    Eesh. Reading the LGF fox news nutpicking article was disturbing. Because skittles are totally gangster.

  32. 32.

    Yutsano

    March 21, 2012 at 1:56 am

    @Randiego: Don’t forget to tip your veal and try the waitress folks!

  33. 33.

    wasabi gasp

    March 21, 2012 at 2:33 am

    I’d probably lay an egg.

  34. 34.

    opie jeanne

    March 21, 2012 at 3:20 am

    @Wag: How do they land in that thing? I noticed a backpack, is it a parachute?

  35. 35.

    opie jeanne

    March 21, 2012 at 3:26 am

    @Wag: Never mind. That last one showed us how they land, with a parachute.

  36. 36.

    GG

    March 21, 2012 at 3:55 am

    Couldn’t get the subtitle thing to work, but it wasn’t really needed. Fantastic, happy-making video, however impractical it might be for most of us to ever experience.

    But Oh those ebil Nederlanders, killing old people who don’t have “Don’t Kill Me” bracelets… Sorry, my snark ran out v. fast. That lying piece of shit lie just pisses me off. I so love the Netherlands, except for the lack of sun enough of the year.

  37. 37.

    Anahymen

    March 21, 2012 at 5:45 am

    Pretty obviously a fake. Even more clear in the video posted at wired.com. The interesting thing to me was noticing the Slingshot logo on the prop wings. Slingshot is a local (to me) company that makes kiteboarding gear. It looks like they sacrificed a kite to serve as the skin of the wings.

  38. 38.

    FridayNext

    March 21, 2012 at 7:36 am

    @feebog:

    Man with a dream, this Buds for yo

    Did you mean Bud Cort? Because that’s exactly who I as thinking of when I saw this.

    I guess it only took about 40 years to make Bud Cort’s dream a reality I wonder if these Dutch guys have a bird friend who will crap on his enemies and mark them for death?

    Strangest.Ending.Credits.Ever.

  39. 39.

    Montysano

    March 21, 2012 at 8:10 am

    In reading about this guy, I also stumbled on to Jetman. I had no idea that either thing was possible.

  40. 40.

    Lee

    March 21, 2012 at 8:11 am

    I say we take up a collection for John to try this.

    The comedy alone would make it worth it.

  41. 41.

    John D.

    March 21, 2012 at 8:28 am

    @Anahymen: That’s exactly what they are made of. Read the title of the 13th video in the series.

    What do you mean by “fake”, as well? Are you claiming that he did not leave the ground using the wings? Nobody on his team is claiming that he has achieved human-powered flight. They are claiming to have flown a short distance using the wings. I’d like to see your evidence that he didn’t.

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    March 21, 2012 at 9:11 am

    I want me my jetpack. (Quiet one, too.)

  43. 43.

    Awesome

    March 21, 2012 at 9:24 am

    It’s so passé to claim something is fake if you didn’t bother to try to understand how it works.

    It’s magic. That’s what it is. Don’t give me this nonsense about motors and 2000 watts of force, 5% supplied by arm muscles. It’s magic, conjured by a powerful sorcerer.

    And he’s going to turn you into a bumpy toad for doubting him.

  44. 44.

    LABiker

    March 21, 2012 at 9:56 am

    I just flew in from Schenectady and, boy, are my arms tired.

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    March 21, 2012 at 10:15 am

    Some years ago — in the 1980s, if I recall correctly — a man flew across the English Channel under his own power. He was a skinny little guy, an experienced long-distance cyclist, riding what was essentially a special lightweight bicycle with wings and pedal-powered propellers.

    Even if the Dutch birdman has to move his arms only to actuate the motors that do the physical work of flapping the wings, I see his brief flight left him having to catch his breath. There’s quite a lot of continuing repetitive motion involved before you have enough airspeed to glide for a bit. So like the guy who flew across the Channel, I reckon you’d need to be quite lean and very fit to actually use these wings to fly. But this thing does seem to have potential as an extreme sport.

    @Lee:
    “As God is my witness, I thought John Cole could fly.”

  46. 46.

    henrythefifth

    March 21, 2012 at 10:35 am

    It’s fake. 1st, when the guy launches, there is magically a camera to his right, but there is no person there in the initial filming. Second, if he really were flying, his legs would still be perpendicular to the ground. There is no way he has such amazing abs to raise his legs parallel to the ground in flight. Third, there’s no lift under the wings while in “flight”–they still are as floppy as they were on the ground. The wings would be puffed up and full-looking from the underside were he truly flying, see Bernoulli’s Principle, or your shower curtain every day.

  47. 47.

    Will

    March 21, 2012 at 10:44 am

    It’s fake because it looks fake.

    (1) The helmet cam shots don’t show the wings, the other people, or the flyer’s shadow (which should be in the upper right of the frame). That’s because the helmet cam shots are taken from a RC-helicopter.

    (2) The helmet cam footage was shot in the morning. The “flying” shots were in the afternoon. Check out the position of the sun in both shots.

    (3) Notice that the flyer’s shadow disappears at around the 30 second mark? First it’s there, while the fellow is running along the ground, then leather-jacket wanders into the frame, then he wanders out, and *poof* the flyer’s shadow has disappeared.

    (4) Right at take-off the camera man has a mild epileptic seizure and also forgets how to focus his camera. Huh… that’s an unfortunate mistake. He makes the same mistake during the landing. Bad luck, I guess.

    (5) What is holding the flyer’s legs up? Seriously. Hang-gliders use a hammock type thing to keep themselves in a superman position. What’s this guy doing?
    At first his body is in an “L” shape as his legs are hanging down while he “flaps.” Then… suddenly, his legs magically lift up into a superman position. What’s holding them up? If you think “muscle,” then go try it. Put your upper body on a desk/table, say, everything north of your stomach, and then lift your legs to horizontal. Then hold it for 5 minutes, while flapping your arms.
    Also, he can’t be clipping into a previously unseen harness while flying because both his hands are rather occupied, you know, with the flapping.

  48. 48.

    slippy

    March 21, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    There is no way he has such amazing abs to raise his legs parallel to the ground in flight

    Maybe he’s a gymnast. Or a martial artist. Tae Kwon Do practitioners must build up a hip muscle that’s about the size of your thumb in order to hold up those high kicks.

    Or maybe he’s Wile E. Coyote.

  49. 49.

    Jason

    March 21, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    I agree, fake. The takeoff looks fake, like a CGI effect. And the physics is all wrong — those wings have to generate \massive\ lift, not just wobble back an forth a little. Ever seen a pelican take off? If it was possible at all, it would require that sort of motion. And his “power assist” drive train is pure animated handwaving — I can’t see how it could possibly work.

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