Didn’t see a thread on this, so thought I’d start one. There has been a lot of videos on the internet lately about this guy who claims to have devised a flying suit that, well, allows him to fly simply by flapping his wings. It looks like complete horseshit to me, but surprisingly folks seem to be coming down fairly evenly on the hoax/no hoax side of things, so I figured I’d put it here and see what some other 'dopers think of this.
-XT
Seems suspicious to me, given the momentous implications of such a feat if it were really to happen…I mean, if he’d really done it, why not more cameras, more angles, more instrumentation, more witnesses…not even one reporter called to the event…really? I’m not buying it until there is 3rd party independent verification of it.
It’s fake. The video looks fake.
Unless there’s some new material that we don’t know about, human arm powered ornithopters are just not possible.
This is a real human powered ornithopter:
Notice how much wing you really need to take a human aloft. Also notice that the aircraft was towed up to speed - not just started with an awkward run.
The flying dutchman is a hoax. It’s video editing. And it’s not that good either.
It would be a cool Mythbusters episode though. 
I haven’t seen the calculations, but it seems improbable that the guy could possibly have enough thrust to weight ratio to fly the way he was in that video.
-XT
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Notice how much wing you really need to take a human aloft. Also notice that the aircraft was towed up to speed - not just started with an awkward run.
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Also notice in your video that they actually towed it into the air first, so it wasn’t taking off from a dead stop, but instead the human powered machine only had to maintain flight?
-XT
Exactly. The video I posted, the guy could barely maintain altitude for a brief flight. And that was by pedaling - one of the most efficient ways to convert human power into mechanical power.
Here, have a look a 13/14:
They put in a part where the camera points to the ground so they can pan back to the CGI wing without an obvious transition. Before the camera goes toward teh ground, there’s a black diamond on the left wing and not on the right. When the camera comes back up, a black diamond appears on the right as well. And, after the camera pan, the wing moves so much more unrealistically.
Very very fake.
The video does claim that the power to flap the wings is actually coming from electric motors. The pilot’s arm motions feed into sensors that are used to control the wing motions in a sort of strength-amplifying scheme. They aren’t claiming that the pilot is himself powering the wings directly.
It’s probably fake anyway.
The transition happens at the 1:50 mark if you want to fast forward.
Yeah, I gathered that from further reading. Still fake, though. What are they claiming powers these motors? If it were batteries, it’d take a shit ton of them and big ass motors. Neither of which are visible.
The flapping doesn’t “look” like it’s producing any upward thrust. Indeed, for several flaps and a lot of initial running it doesn’t. Then it suddenly does. But they sure have gone to a lot of effort for the hoax, if it is one.
It’s a pretty good looking fake to my eyes, but that black mark appearing out of nowhere is pretty damning. As far as CG goes, this is pretty darned well done, IMHO.
What, you don’t believe an electric motor can propel a single person into the air for a few minutes? That’s all we’re looking at, if it is not a hoax. This may be a strange way to achieve flight compared to using a propeller, but it is not human-powered, so all bets are off. The only thing the person is doing is guiding it and providing dead weight.
Jarno Smeets sounds like a fun guy to party with. I’m going with “fake, fake, fakity fake,” though.
This video, on the other hand, is completely 100% legit.
Gizmodo has been running a goodtakedown on this. The real blatant CGI giveaway is described halfway down the page:
What type of materials would it take to put human powered flight not too far outside of the realm of the bicycle? Mass produced spider silk / carbon nanotubes? Would anything light enough to be feasible be unpractical being too weak to survive a light gust? That one with the 100ft wingspan is impressive, but it seems expensive, in addition to unsustainable flight, and being too wide to take off with practically.
Not only is the video fake but apparently so is Jarno Smeets.
Cavorite would do the trick. Not too much else.
Where did I say that I don’t think an electric motor can propel a single person through the air?
I know that electric powered flight is possible. I’ve seen it first hand. However, ornithopters are incredibility inefficient. If someone wanted to fly under electric power, they’d use a fixed wing and a prop.
Also, for the guy to take off at the slow speed he did, the wing would have to be MASSIVE. There is just not enough wing area on his little suit to get him in the air at human running speed.
The only thing this guy is actually doing is posing in front of a green screen.