Oh, ghod-I want to go up on this bird so bad it hurts! It’s almost like you’re Superman.
I could see flying in plane based on a manga hurting fairly bad. I mean, let’s put the center of gravity well above the wing and see what happens. That’s certainly not going to affect the stability of the aircraft at all.
OK, the prototype craft looks reasonably stable because the pilot’s body is plastered against the wing, but the gliders in the manga where people are perched on ladders above the wing in some gravity-defying way? I guess there’s a reason why they went into art rather than engineering.
Parking your body six feet above a fabric-and-tube ultralight might be a bad idea, but there are plenty of low-wing aircraft out there, not counting commercial jet liners with substantial dihedral and engines mounted below the wings. Browsing for other pics of the rig featured in the OP it looks like the aircraft itself probably has plenty of mass, so that the pilot’s own body doesn’t shift the CoG upward by much.
I can be as hyperanalytical as any engineer, but you have to set that stuff aside and just enjoy fantasy pieces for what they are.
If you need to continue this discussion, I’ll be waiting over here for the cat-bus.
Looking at those pictures makes me want to hitch a ride all the more. This would be perfect for a Bond or Kingsmen movie.
See:
self-launching sailplane
and/or
motor glider
OP’s rig is an ultralight wing glider with a bizarre fuel+engine pod where the rider/pilot should be and the rider/pilot where the powerplant should be
It’s a frikkin’ jetpack with wings, is what it is.
With the camera fixed on the left wing facing the pilot, it’s hard to get real perspective of the flight. Are there other videos taken of this thing from another aircraft or even on the ground?
Here ya go. It does not appear to have a wretched excess of thrust, but it does alright.
…Ninja’d… :smack:
Actually, Western Airlines.