Ornithopter First Manned Flight

[Mossie]

The first sustained manned flight of an ornithopter (I know most of you guys know, but for those that don't it's an aircraft that flys purely by the flapping motion of it's wings) took place on July 8th this year in Canada (yeah, yeah, we know you guys, keep it down!   ).



Have a look at these links:
Project Ornithopter Website
Videos of the Flapper in flight

It's been a dream of man to fly in the same manner as a bird for centuries, so this could rightly be mentioned as a milestone in flight.  Some say the guys cheated slightly (they added small model aircraft jets to increase thrust due to weight increases) but I'm willing to give them it.  The machine was a little ungainly but it flew, if not much further than the Wright Brothers managed!  They don't think that large aircraft will ever fly in this manner, but there could be advantages for GA types.

This begs the question of course, how would you go about an Ornithopter build?  If your staying within the 'real' world a glider model would lend itself well to a project, but since we live in a world-of-whiff, why not An-124's soaring through the air, a real Condor!

Simon

[jcf]

To begin with I'd ditch the bird form and go for the dragonfly as the pattern.
Cheers, Jon

[The Rat]

Got some pics of it when they had their Wings and Wheels festival last spring, bottom shot is the engine.

[TsrJoe]

http://www.ornithopter.ca/index_e.html


 

[Mossie]

Lovely pics Rat!

Giving these guys they're due, they've had very limited funding to get project of the ground.  They're just a University department & have had no commercial funding yet.  I read in article in BBC Focus & the head guy said that one of the main problems was the engine.  Because they couldn't fund a new design they had to work with a standard engine, the up & down motion of the piston being converted to rotary movement, which they then had to convert back to lateral movement, causing big losses in effeciency.  They also found that Ornithopters have to be designed within tight weight limits (which they exceeded), hence the little boost jets.

Jon, I like the idea of the dragonfly/insectile motion.  One crticism I'd head at the wing movement was that it was purely up & down, with little thrust movment.  I'd reckon a viable design would have to include this & the 'figure of eight' movement that you get with insectile wings (I guess it'd become an 'entomopter' then) would lend itself well to a light design.  Not two mention two pairs of wings working in tandem, it'd give a more consistent movement.

I think they've done the right thing with they're design for now, as a dragonfly design would need some complex machinery & they just haven't got the powerplant to do it.  Given any thought to how you'd model it Jon?

Simon.

[The Rat]

Giving these guys they're due, they've had very limited funding to get project of the ground.

Literally.  

They have also had very little time, about 30 years. Nature has been at it for a few billion.    

[Mossie]

I think it'd be great to see flapping-wing aircraft as a common sight in the skys, it'd give some kind of 'at one with nature feeling'.

At the Yorkshire Air Show, I saw Christian Moullec in his microlight sheperding a flock of geese.  The sight was fantastic enough, but imagine this with an ornithopter!



Simon.