Duck monoplane & He70, yellow : hybrid aircraft/animals e.a.

[ericr]

the inspriring, elegant and aerodynamic silhouette of the Manatee has a nice fit with an An-2,

one way :





or the other :

[Tophe]

Yes: nice!

[ericr]

thanks !

[TheChronicOne]

Awww, the red guy is cute!   

Other is good too.


That reminds me.. wait'll you get a load of what I found on the internet yesterday...   I'll have it up in the Facebook whifs thread soon.

[jcf]

The Manatee looks like the Gwinn Aircar.

[ericr]

thanks a lot for the infos !

[ericr]

you may have wondered what had become of the head of the previous elephant.

Here we go :

(with a Revell 1/72 Huey)

[steelpillow]

Yay! An elecopter!!!!

[Tophe]

Nice! while... dangerous: the elephant should not raise its trunk too high, or it is cut down painfully... poor animal, I understand that Darwin evolution did not select this way as the most common/winner

[steelpillow]

Nice! while... dangerous: the elephant should not raise its trunk too high, or it is cut down painfully... poor animal, I understand that Darwin evolution did not select this way as the most common/winner

That is not so, the elecopter (called by some the heliphant) is well adapted to its lifestyle. Like the biological elephant it is a herbivore and eats great quantities of leaves and twigs, using its trunk to pull them into its mouth. But, where the land-bound elephant reaches up into the tree, the airborne elecopter hovers above the tree and reaches down to graze. The model is in a typical dawn waking-up pose, on the ground with the rotor stilled and the trunk raised above the grass and scrub to sniff the breeze and sense its direction - a vital prerequisite to any takeoff.
Where Darwin needed a helping hand was with the rotor - no natural rotor larger or more powerful than an electrostatically-driven bacterial flagellum has ever evolved.

[zenrat]

 

[ericr]

 

[steelpillow]

An interesting side note on the elecopter: when flying at speed it turns its ears horizontal to reduce drag. It even uses them as a lifting surface. This naturally causes it to maintain trim by bringing its legs up and forward, further reducing drag. The trunk of course is stretched stiffly forward.

The worst thing that can happen in this situation is a sneeze, which destroys the streamlined airflow much like "viffing" in a Harrier jump-jet, and it comes almost to a dead stop in the air, with a comically surprised look on its face.

So many more models needed to document the colourful life of the elecopter!

[ericr]

So many more models needed to document the colourful life of the elecopter!

indeed !

thank you so much for being so inpired by my modest contraptions 

[Tophe]

The worst thing that can happen in this situation is a sneeze, which destroys the streamlined airflow much like "viffing" in a Harrier jump-jet, and it comes almost to a dead stop in the air, with a comically surprised look on its face.

Never had I thought of such a problem in the "life" of an animal-aircraft, thanks!