How lovely.
Man FLIES with Android-powered homemade bird wings
A Dutch bloke has taken to the air by flapping his arms, proving that humans can fly with the right technology, plenty of time and friends to help with the build. Jarno Smeets flew using wings of his own design, built over the course of a year, and managed to spend a decent minute in the air – longer than the Wright Brothers …
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 10:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Danger Will Robinson!
There's something not quite right here, my spider sense is tingling. Something looks wrong in that video, which does make me wonder.
I don't have time to de-construct it right now, because I have some equally barking paid w**k to do (and shouldn't be posting, I suppose), but I am sure others will do the job more than adequately. Am I being cynical?
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 11:31 GMT Ru
Suspicious Physics sense... tingling!
One might consider if it were that easy to get airborne with something you could build cheaply and carry on your back, light aircraft travel would be a wee bit cheaper.
Ever see all the stuff you need to get a microlight in the air? Not to mention the amount of support required to keep the wing shape. Guess I'll still have to wait a year or two for my Blue Mars style wingsuit.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 12:02 GMT jai
friend of mine also agrees that it's a fake:
"On the 13/14 video of his you can see around 1.30 there is a sun design on the right hand wing, then the camera looks down, then looks up again. The sun design has a large dot that wasn't there before. Very clear and obvious evidence of digital manipulation on at least one of the videos for sure."
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 12:19 GMT Chris Tierney
Viral video nonsense sponsored by Philips.
Yes that right folks- its CGI augmented with a guy that has a fake facebook profile.
This should help those who think its real.
http://i39.tinypic.com/214s2z7.jpg
Plus he's been uploading videos for over a year on this project and his first one was titled 1 of 14.
How did he know he was going to make 14 videos before his first successful flight unless he had a friggin time machine.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 12:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Giveaway for me
is how the wing panels are flopping around randomly during the 'flaps' and at the end when it's supposed to be gliding. Those wings are doing no lifting whatsoever. Anyone's who's familiar with a sailing boat or a hang-glider should spot that a mile off. But yes, the lack of actual batteries, motors and the feeble flapping rate is a big clue from the off.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 13:24 GMT Graham Bartlett
Re: Fake but it doesn't have to be...
Oh yes it does. Flapping simply doesn't scale up. Mute swans are pushing the limits of self-powered takeoff (anyone who's seen them getting airborne can testify to that), and they're only a quarter the weight of a human. The largest (now-extinct) bird ever was about the weight of a human, but it almost certainly couldn't take off under its own power alone - it needed a good strong headwind and/or a nice slope.
BTW, the Gossamer Condor is 35 years old this year. Nice to hear that Jem is having a crack at doing this again, but it's really not a new trick. And it demonstrates that if you want to do a human-powered aircraft, the only muscles with the necessary oomph are your legs
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 13:02 GMT stu 4
clearly bollocks
Surely El Reg you have just posted this story a week early ? I refuse to believe my El Reg is so gullable...
I fly a paramotor: my wing is 29m2. that is about 6 or 7 times the size of these wings.. and I need a 20hp engine with a 1.3m long propeller hanging from my back rotating at 400mph to get off the ground...
It's a bit of fun I suppose, but I do get depressed with stuff like this - that peoples grasp of science seems to terribly basic as to think this is real.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 13:05 GMT Tamer Shafik
I so wanted to believe this...
They said all the right things, Turnigy motors, a bunch of 5000mAh LiPos, Wii accelerometers, arduino, 2000W of motor output - all very plausible. But the video isn't right.
Compared to birds, we have very big, heavy legs. Your legs would inevitably dangle below you. Watch the video. This is what happens during takeoff (35 secs). However, at around 38 secs, the legs magically come up to be inline with the torso. That makes no sense. They then remain in this streamline position until he comes in to land.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 15:58 GMT Graham Bartlett
Re: I so wanted to believe this...
You *haven't* seen plenty of hang gliders, otherwise you'd know that the harness is body-length like a sleeping-bag. You push your feet into the sleeping-bag bit which supports your legs, and then your body naturally swings down horizontal. Early harnesses (back in the 1970s) had leg straps to do the same thing, but you won't see many of them today. Only training harnesses don't have support for the legs, and that's to stop newbies forgetting to take their feet out when they're landing.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 14:15 GMT nichobe
Re: hmmmmm
Well Jodo Kast, people often research using the interwebs and then cite said internet articles
http://www.liutilities.com/how-to/cite-internet-article/
When you look at something that you believe isn't quite right you get thinking and poke around until you can find an explanation.. i.e. CGI, thin fishing line from a crane etc..
I would have hoped that a journalist writing an article would have performed even the most basic critical thinking and investigation.... I guess I thought more of El Reg...
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 14:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Way too obvious
People seriously cannot see this is CGI? I would think that:
- the bland slightly wrong colour pallete (the saturation levels are wrong compared to the surroundings)
-the appearently random "defocusing" (which no semidecent camera actually capable of focusing nowadays does)
- the complete lack of a powersource capable of delivering enough force and the way too flimsy wings bending in a totally unrealistic way
- etc
would be more than enough to disprove this as another attempt at either viral marketing or attention whoring.
(I know many people just see it as a: "I can tell by the pixels" response, but one look at that video convinced me it's a CGI fake. You might not believe it, but some people have enough of a trained eye to just tell whether something is real or not)
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 14:32 GMT robinlawrie
why on earth would he use wii remotes rather than handholds on the wings?? the only thing that achieves is to decouple his arms from the flapping wings. meaning any muscle power is wasted, he has extra weight and complexity, and (bearing in mind the accuracy of wii remote tech) his wings are highly unlikely to do what he tells them.
seems a lot of publications want this cute idea to be true, but its so obviously bollox on so many levels.
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Thursday 22nd March 2012 19:34 GMT Clive Galway
Exactly. Wiimotes would be the last thing you would use - it would frankly be dangerous - twist your wrist the wrong way or drop the wiimote (even with wrist strap) and you could stall one wing and die.
Clearly anything augmenting muscle power would not use wireless input - old school potentiometers etc would be way more reliable and MUCH lighter.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 15:56 GMT Andus McCoatover
El Reg. questions...
"We do note that there seems no reason for the ground cameras to stay so far away from the intrepid birdman during launch"
Yep, noticed that. I also queried the need for the 'assistants' to run away sharpish - out of camerashot - in the opposite direction to supposed flight. That got me instantly. Plus, ever seen a hang-glider wing flex? I have, and from being strapped underneath it. I had wires from the control bar ("A-frame") to the centre of the wing, and even then the thing flexed.
I thought it was great, but now I'm inclined to call 'fake'. However, I'd love to be proven wrong.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 16:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ground check footage.
We need to see it where one single wave of the arms makes the entire thing generate lift right within say oh 5 feet of forward momentum, just like jumping off something slowly. OR running.. you know what I mean.
Anyway, yeah one single swing of the arms and the whole wing needs to be in "LIFT GENERATION MODE" this would utterly kick ass over other's since you can glide after sufficient lift.
I'm a smoker and I think it AINT a HOAX. I bet I could fly too.
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Wednesday 21st March 2012 21:00 GMT Nomedias
Not gonna judge until he does/doesn't repeat the feat.
Would love it to be true, but fully willing to accept its all fake. In the past I'd immediately dismiss this and move on. Then one day I saw an amusingly church sign (can't remember the details, but I event posted the address). I took a picture and posted it only to have it picked apart by CGI "experts" looking for proof of their assumption I faked it. That caused me to be a little less cynical when it comes to "too good to be true" stories. I'm not necessarily believing this happened, but I'm not gonna shoot it down ;) until I know if we're getting a repeat performance. Who knows, maybe he is holding back details until he is sure he can patent it. Strange stuff happens, sometimes it even true.
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Thursday 22nd March 2012 10:17 GMT Ralph B
Re: The BBC's been duped!
Not really. The Beeb chap (Ros Atkins) reports the "claims" fairly sceptically, finishing with "if you ask me I think he probably just spend some time on his PC with some video editing software".
Of course, if you didn't register these words then it's likely that most others won't either, but I can't really blame the Beeb for that. A viral video fake is about as newsworthy as a skateboarding duck.
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Thursday 22nd March 2012 13:44 GMT Ron1
Bettery - They use 74Wh of Li-po batteries
Don't know if the flight is real or not, but batteries are adequate.
Their 3d sketch lists 4x5000mAh batteries
This battery has same specs:
http://www.stefansliposhop.de/liposhop/sls-apl/sls-apl-45c/sls-apl-5000mah-4s1p-148-v-45c-90c::748.html
Has a mass of 571g, 4x 5000mAh cells, can output up to 6 kW (12V x 500A) of power (for 30s or so) - quite adequate methinks
What were you expecting el reg? Several car batteries? As any RC modeller knows Li-pos are quite powerful...
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Thursday 22nd March 2012 13:55 GMT Technologikal
I'm just surprised anyone had to resort to science fact, to out this as a viral, I mean, everyone used their eyes while watching the clearly dodgy footage didn't they? Did the entire tech press have a common sense bypass all at once? Oh and hey, look at what Nintendo are releasing tomorrow http://www.nintendo.co.uk/kidicarus
In other news, I've got some magic beans for sale.