After eight months of building and testing, this weekend, Jarno Smeets flew 100 meters using a set of self-made, flapping wings. The moment he lifts off the ground is pretty amazing. [Thanks, Katie Wilson!]
Update: See the follow up post, about this most likely being a hoax, here.
Human Birdwings
Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.
View more articles by Gareth Branwyn
Related Articles from Make:
Clearly fake.
What tipped you off?
My amateur analysis (it’s faked) – http://awaitinginspiration.com/2012/03/human-bird-wings
i could be wrong, but it seems like he would need the chest and arms of lou ferrigno and the bone structure of calista flockhart for this to even come close to working.
It’s assisted by the backpack motors and controlled with a Wii controller and an Android phone with attached ADK.
Fancy and perhaps feasible mechanism, check. Stirring music, check. No reason for such an elaborate hoax, check.
So, where’s the cloud of plastic balls hovering under the scrapyard magnet? We SO want it to be real.
But seriously: fabric doesn’t inflate upwards when he leaves the ground, it just flutters around (should be 200lbs of upward pressure on fabric. Imagine forces on a tiny parachute.) Wing lacks swept angle or long counterweight below (or tail elevators on a rear boom), yet never nosedives. Now go look at Snowbird ornithopter on youtube: basic level flight needs much, much higher airspeed with much longer wingspan.
He’s being towed. In each of his videos, you can see the tracks of a vehicle beneath him. He’s basically parasailing with a really fancy wing. It’s neat that it flaps, but I’m sure it doesn’t do anything to help him actually fly.
An impressive mechanism, and I’m sure it’s super fun.
Definitely right. The tracks are just “surprisingly” fresh and in the direction of the flight…
I can’t say I’m convinced that this is legitimate. The flapping mechanism on the website seems like it would require a lot of power to achieve flight. I don’t think a battery would be light enough or last long enough.
faaake….
If you read more about it you will see that it is not human powered.
It has a couple of motors to flap the wings as your arms move
My first thought was this must be fake. Humans do not have the strength to do this. If you do some searching on the website you find the wings are powered by some LiPo batteries and a couple of 2KW electric motors.
And it looks like it’s running on an HTC cell phone with Chipkit running the Android ADK. He uses the cell phone and a Wiimote for controlling the motors.
Correction, it’s a Seeeduino ADK.
It’s motorized… read his blog. The arm flapping controls the mechanism, it doesn’t power it. Still very cool, but unfortunately not human powered.
He just doesn’t seem to be displacing sufficient air rise at the rate he is. He doesn’t have the speed to generate much lift, so it must be entirely due to “flapping”. I’d expect the grass to be swaying and the mics on the cameras to be popping a lot more than they are.
from concept to working prototype in 8 months, i call shenanigans.
also a perfect takeoff and landing on first attempt? never
If there were an Academy Award for Makers, this guy would deserve it.
Arms of lou ferrigno and the bone structure of calista flockhart for this to even come close to working.
He’s obviously being assisted by the uplifting music.
Dont Hate. It was cool looking. I wanna fly.
critical thinking skills != hate
camera always pans away right before and right after flight. Perfect time to switch to cg. Notice the “bones” in the wings right before take off. The the wings at the end of the shot laying on the ground. flat. no bones. It’s a kite attached to him, then edited but really well. Wonder what they are advertising.
This is a (fake) viral video posted by the makers of the GoPro video camera. If you think this is real, go search up some of their previous marketing attempts You folks, of all people, should know better than to get suckered in by this.
Yes it is fake. Video 13/14 “attempted” flight of his is more telling of the video editing / compositing. anyone in video production / animation as I am can tell you it’s fake.
Nice, you guys are posting fake CGI videos now? Take a second to question the authenticity and you’ll hopefully realize that fluid dynamics doesn’t work this way on that scale. The materials and electronics/power side probably doesn’t either. Physics people…physics.
As its totaly clear that this is fake could you pls mark this as a good CGI work and not as a brake through physiks?
I understand that this is easy to belive cause its realy good cgi work but everyone see that this is obviously fake.
Like most people commenting, we know this is a hoax/fake video.
I’ve seen the other videos on youtube and the CGI isn’t really that good. Just watch the wings…. This last video was a little better than the others, but it’s still a fake! Granted, it’s better than I could do, but I don’t have any desire to “pull a fast one” on the world a large.
I feel bad for MAKE, falling for this hoax. MAKE kind of loses some credibility for posting this. I bet it was the “wii-mote” enabled wings premise, at the beginning of the series , wasn’t it…. Those pesky “wii-motes” can make anything seem like a “real hack”…
I am very disappointed that this is (apparently) a very elaborate fake. But it’s true, those wings just aren’t taut enough to be supporting any weight. They should appear as rigid as a parachute.
*sigh*
Don’t believe everything you see on youtube…..
[…] Be the first to like this post. Like this: Human Birdwings After eight months of building and testing, this weekend, Jarno Smeets flew 100 meters using a set of self-made, flapping wings. MAKE | Man Flies with Self-Made Bird Wings […]
Compare to high speed footage of birds taking off and you will see the amount of energy and motion needed for flapping lift on a lightweight animal. Obviously this rig doesn’t even come close. http://youtu.be/bSY6UW3hM4Y
Even better, compare to slow motion bat flight. To achieve this flight the operator would have needed a large initial thrust to even get off the ground. Something the video does not provide evidence for.
[…] asked the guys CGI experts at Industrial Light and Magic to look at the human bird wings video that we, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and a bunch of other sites posted yesterday. Eleven experts cry foul (fowl) […]
[…] asked the CGI experts at Industrial Light and Magic to look at the human bird wings video that we, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and a bunch of other sites posted yesterday. Eleven experts cry foul (fowl) […]
[…] asked the CGI experts at Industrial Light and Magic to look at the human bird wings video that we, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and a bunch of other sites posted yesterday. Eleven experts cry foul (fowl) […]
FAKE. as any hang-glider pilot would probably tell you, you do not have the strength the keep you leg up and parallel to you body in the air, that’s why all hang-gliders have a little leg/bag harness to lift your legs in the air. How this “pilot” did that at 0:38 is beyond me.
It is,as many people said on here,a hoax.The person who made this appeared on Dutch tv yesterday stating that it was in fact a research into how the media works.
Don’t believe everything you see on youtube…..
Dont Hate. It was cool looking. I wanna fly.
Dont Hate. It was cool looking. I wanna fly.
He’s obviously being assisted by the uplifting music.
Dont Hate. It was cool looking. I wanna fly.
that’s why all hang-gliders have a little leg/bag harness to lift your legs in the air. How this “pilot” did that at 0:38 is beyond me.
The moment lifts off the ground is pretty amazing.
[…] Hyneman of Mythbusters, MAKE Magazine, TIME, and GIZMODO all “report” on this story with complete and utter […]
Ridiculous story there. What happened after? Good luck!
this is very good. i like and sharing
http://www.friv6games.net/
Google
Below you will find the link to some web pages that we believe you must visit.
http://www.entretien-menager-genial.ca
[…]we came across a cool internet site that you simply may well get pleasure from. Take a appear when you want[…]
ηλιακά συστήματα
[…]we like to honor several other internet websites on the web, even though they arent linked to us, by linking to them. Under are some webpages worth checking out[…]
medjool dates for sale
[…]Every as soon as inside a although we pick out blogs that we study. Listed beneath are the newest websites that we choose […]
http://www.menage-poly.com
[…]Here are several of the web sites we suggest for our visitors[…]
no 1 bulk sms
[…]Every once in a when we opt for blogs that we read. Listed below are the most recent web-sites that we choose […]
Shoe cleaner
[…]always a large fan of linking to bloggers that I like but do not get a great deal of link like from[…]
308 barrel
[…]always a significant fan of linking to bloggers that I like but really don’t get a lot of link adore from[…]
window cleaner perth
[…]that is the finish of this article. Right here youll come across some web-sites that we believe you will appreciate, just click the hyperlinks over[…]
mining contractors
[…]Every once in a though we opt for blogs that we read. Listed beneath are the most recent web sites that we pick out […]
perth locksmith
[…]Here are some of the web sites we suggest for our visitors[…]
chances of winning the lottery
[…]although internet sites we backlink to below are considerably not related to ours, we feel they’re essentially worth a go by way of, so have a look[…]
web design 001
[…]please stop by the internet sites we comply with, like this one, because it represents our picks through the web[…]
advertise your guitar
[…]the time to read or take a look at the content material or sites we’ve linked to below the[…]
hajhullás vitamin
[…]one of our guests not long ago suggested the following website[…]
superior auto institute reviews
[…]one of our visitors not long ago proposed the following website[…]
friv
[…]Here is an excellent Blog You may Come across Intriguing that we Encourage You[…]
Woman of Alien
Ideal get the job done you’ve got carried out, this website is basically awesome with fantastic data. Time is God’s method of preserving anything from occurring directly.
glass pool fencing perth
[…]Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine several unrelated data, nonetheless actually really worth taking a appear, whoa did 1 discover about Mid East has got a lot more problerms also […]
vw repairs
[…]we like to honor quite a few other world-wide-web internet sites around the internet, even though they arent linked to us, by linking to them. Below are some webpages worth checking out[…]
mobile bridge
[…]that will be the end of this post. Right here youll locate some sites that we feel youll value, just click the links over[…]
canvas printing
[…]the time to read or visit the content material or web sites we have linked to below the[…]
paintless dent repair perth
[…]Sites of interest we have a link to[…]
party photographers
[…]usually posts some quite interesting stuff like this. If youre new to this site[…]
work from home careers
[…]just beneath, are a lot of entirely not connected web sites to ours, having said that, they are surely worth going over[…]
superior auto institute review
[…]Sites of interest we have a link to[…]
superior auto institute reviews
[…]although web-sites we backlink to below are considerably not associated to ours, we really feel they may be really worth a go by means of, so have a look[…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kQUpnbslok
[…]Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine a couple of unrelated information, nonetheless actually worth taking a search, whoa did one particular study about Mid East has got additional problerms too […]
ebay accounts for sale
[…]very few web-sites that transpire to become comprehensive beneath, from our point of view are undoubtedly properly worth checking out[…]
vehicle leasing
[…]that would be the end of this article. Here youll discover some websites that we feel you will appreciate, just click the links over[…]
minecraft gratuit
[…]below youll discover the link to some websites that we assume you’ll want to visit[…]
read more
[…]Sites of interest we’ve a link to[…]
GNA
[…]Here are a number of the internet sites we advocate for our visitors[…]
male enhancement pills
[…]although web sites we backlink to below are considerably not connected to ours, we feel they are essentially really worth a go through, so possess a look[…]
best car shipping company
[…]Here is an excellent Weblog You may Come across Interesting that we Encourage You[…]
how to earn money from home
[…]we came across a cool web-site that you might delight in. Take a appear in the event you want[…]
Smartphones Store
[…]usually posts some incredibly intriguing stuff like this. If you are new to this site[…]
used mobile phones lagos
[…]always a massive fan of linking to bloggers that I appreciate but do not get a good deal of link appreciate from[…]
used mobile phones lagos
[…]the time to study or stop by the material or web-sites we have linked to beneath the[…]
data entry jobs from home
[…]Sites of interest we’ve a link to[…]
photograph
[…]below youll obtain the link to some sites that we feel you’ll want to visit[…]
Arvind Pandit
[…]we came across a cool site that you may love. Take a search for those who want[…]
clicca qui
[…]Sites of interest we have a link to[…]
Homes for sale in Maryland
[…]usually posts some extremely exciting stuff like this. If youre new to this site[…]
Online Traffic
[…]the time to study or stop by the content or web sites we’ve linked to beneath the[…]
web design company
[…]Every when in a while we choose blogs that we read. Listed below would be the most recent sites that we pick out […]
Buy cheap facial massager
[…]very handful of internet websites that happen to become detailed beneath, from our point of view are undoubtedly nicely worth checking out[…]
Enjoy some of the Internets best webpages, hand picked.
[…]the time to read or visit the content or web sites we’ve linked to beneath the[…]
projekty domów
[…]just beneath, are a lot of entirely not connected web-sites to ours, nevertheless, they may be surely really worth going over[…]
sheds
[…]always a massive fan of linking to bloggers that I adore but dont get a whole lot of link like from[…]
sheds
[…]Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine a couple of unrelated information, nonetheless truly really worth taking a look, whoa did one particular understand about Mid East has got extra problerms too […]
pool cue ferrule
[…]The information and facts mentioned within the article are several of the best obtainable […]
omega
[…]we like to honor several other web sites around the web, even when they arent linked to us, by linking to them. Underneath are some webpages worth checking out[…]
Las Vegas Pool Party
[…]The facts talked about in the post are a number of the ideal accessible […]
Maryland Registered Nurse
[…]although internet sites we backlink to beneath are considerably not connected to ours, we feel they are truly really worth a go by way of, so have a look[…]
Woodstock Maryland Real Estate
[…]we came across a cool website that you simply could get pleasure from. Take a appear for those who want[…]
phone system disposal
[…]Every as soon as in a though we decide on blogs that we study. Listed beneath are the most up-to-date sites that we pick out […]
Strippers Las Vegas
[…]the time to study or pay a visit to the content or internet sites we have linked to beneath the[…]