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Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

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131–140 of 164 posts

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#131
post #19

Incredibly skeptical. Red flags: 1. He's received criticism about his videos before, but still insists on filming in random parks, only releasing to press after the event, and using blurry/shaky footage. 2. When he takes off, the camera shakes heavily. When he lands, someone steps in front to block the view. 3. At 0:35, his legs lift up so that his body is parallel to the ground (necessary for flight.) If he had been…

Also, birds don't generate lift from merely flapping their wings up and down, they generate lift due to the angle of attack of the wing during the upstroke and downstroke. The wings in this video don't address this issue.

[deleted]

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#132
post #110

Watch a bird take off. Start with some pigeons, then some sea gulls. If you can, watch an albatross - on YouTube if nothing else. As you get larger, you get heavier; as you get heavier you need more lifting force (ie, bigger wings, moving faster). Recall that weight is a function of volume and increases with the cube of your dimensions, while lifting force is a function of surface area and only increases with the squ…

As someone has pointed out elsewhere, you can see in one of their other videos that they have major inconsistencies in the videos that they post. For instance, in this picture, http://i.imgur.com/3Fgct.jpg you can see that there is no black square above the "S" logo. Then, the camera points downward, then upward again, and there is a black square above the "S" logo. This video is very fake.

I also expected to see more up-down, up-down movement from the on-board video (with respect to ground) to coincide with the power strokes.

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#133
post #110

Watch a bird take off. Start with some pigeons, then some sea gulls. If you can, watch an albatross - on YouTube if nothing else. As you get larger, you get heavier; as you get heavier you need more lifting force (ie, bigger wings, moving faster). Recall that weight is a function of volume and increases with the cube of your dimensions, while lifting force is a function of surface area and only increases with the squ…

Birds don't fly by flapping up and down - they flap down and back, then fold the wing and pull it forward and up.

If you just flap and up and down you move up and down, but you don't fly. You need motion to cause forward acceleration, not just up and down bobbing.

Fake, it's simply impossible for the shown flapping method to cause him to fly.

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSikfcJezy4#t=180s and notice how the bird folds the wings as it pulls them up, then spreads them as it pushes down. The folded wings give less resistance to the air than the spread ones, and that difference lets it fly. Without that you can't fly by flapping. To move forward it also has a front back motion that is harder to see in the video, but is still visible.

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#134

Disclosure: I fell for this. That said here is another red flag: The guys reaction at the end of the video is not one of triumph and excitement. Here are some videos of what real reactions look like: First time skydiving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... Breaking a world record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... Winning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOcf6oEiRT0&f…

My impression from this thread was that he's (allegedly) done this a few times already, so some of the adrenalin has probably worn off.

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#135
post #110

Watch a bird take off. Start with some pigeons, then some sea gulls. If you can, watch an albatross - on YouTube if nothing else. As you get larger, you get heavier; as you get heavier you need more lifting force (ie, bigger wings, moving faster). Recall that weight is a function of volume and increases with the cube of your dimensions, while lifting force is a function of surface area and only increases with the squ…

Oh look he even has a animated model of this thing in Maya ;) He conveniently shows it of while "explaing" his wings. Here @20sec : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T...!

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#136
I've worked in the visual effects industry and I don't think this is CGI, at least not in the sense that most commenters mean, a digital rendering of the dude and the wings. If it is, there's a lot of small details that they got right. It could be, and the poor quality of the video makes it hard to tell for sure, but I think that's misdirection.

My guess is that the wings are not mechanical at all beyond being flexible, and he's just pulling on them to flap, and they pulled the guy from an ATV or something. His motion looks like a kite, when he's flapping wildly the front of his chest stays pretty stable and looks like it's anchored. The wings look like they could be modified versions of those kite-surfing things people use.

It's a hell of a lot easier to paint out a wire and a vehicle than it is to put in a synthetic flying dude. and that would get you the helmet-cam footage without having to do extra work.

Also there's tire tracks on the ground from previous takes.

edit: for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvD_0qZzhdo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKlaRtCwIqk

It might not even be the wings providing the lift, he could have a whole chute behind it like in these videos.

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#137
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally someone pulled out meaningful fact about flying. How funny people keep saying about video without taking into account any engineering or physical requirements to make this real.

Annoying as hell, isn't it? >:( More usefully, I don't mind if this turns out to be a fake--but this off-the-cuff "no it is not possible ever" is so narrowminded when not combined with credible facts and analysis.

Obviously it's a conspiracy to destroy HN by flooding it with inanity. There are so many red flags in this discussion.

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#138
post #110

Watch a bird take off. Start with some pigeons, then some sea gulls. If you can, watch an albatross - on YouTube if nothing else. As you get larger, you get heavier; as you get heavier you need more lifting force (ie, bigger wings, moving faster). Recall that weight is a function of volume and increases with the cube of your dimensions, while lifting force is a function of surface area and only increases with the squ…

Franky My Dear, I don't care how the video was shot or how the wings were designed. I just know now, that it is Efiing Possible!!!!

Re: Man Supposedly Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

#139
I am sorry if someone already pointed that out but i just realized how fake this is. Watch that video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q0tKFOcHyrI while guy is about to take off(1:49), everyone including cameraman runs for some reason and we can not see the guy with the wings for a second. Then when we see the guy again and there is a black squaure box next to big s logo this time. You can see that video is edited at 1:52
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