# Would making a plane out of flies be possible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297 "2003-08-15T01:36:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cleric](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@Cleric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleric)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/1 "2003-08-15T01:36:08Z")
I was sent [this](http://trollersunion.homestead.com/files/flyplane.jpg) and was wondering if it is possible. It would make a great gag. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/2 "2003-08-15T01:51:12Z")
I have seen video of fly-engine ultralight building _competitions_. ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/3 "2003-08-15T02:00:40Z")
[Some guy’s experience with this](http://www.flyingacesclub.net/alamo/thingsthatfly.htm) You would think a housefly’s carrying capacity would be Google’able, but I can’t find it! ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/4 "2003-08-15T02:19:22Z")
This is why General Questions is my favorite board - just when I think I’ve heard every question out there, one like this completely blindsides me and cracks me up! ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/5 "2003-08-15T02:32:02Z")
In the OP pic, I see room for several more flies. At least 3 (maybe 5?) along the top of the fuselage, one on each elevator. If that isn’t sufficient power, you can start working on materials, shaving off weight. It is my feeling that they can generate sufficient power to lift it. However, flight training will be a bitch. Imagine the plane is a 747 and the flies are humans, us. We all have control of one thing. I control the left elevator, you control the right aileron, 4 other people each control the throttle of a single engine, etc. Think _we_ could fly it? The thing will simply spiral to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/6 "2003-08-15T02:37:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Boyo Jim \* > \*\* > However, flight training will be a bitch. Imagine the plane is a 747 and the flies are humans, us. We all have control of one thing. I control the left elevator, you control the right aileron, 4 other people each control the throttle of a single engine, etc. Think _we_ could fly it? > > The thing will simply spiral to the ground. \*\* Oh, right. You’re going to go on record now as not believing in Democratic Aeronautics? Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/7 "2003-08-15T02:41:34Z")
And as regards the refrigeration of the power: Brings a whole new meaning to “Cool your jets.” ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/8 "2003-08-15T02:57:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Start the plane. If you did things correctly, it will fly! Sit back and enjoy watching the happy flies playing with the plane! None of them will have experienced anything like this before! ENJOY! Yeah I’ll bet they’re pretty fu\*\*ing\* happy! ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/9 "2003-08-15T03:53:46Z")
Certainly is possible, I could even glue a fly to my own [Mini-plane](http://www.elale.net/images/Really%20small%20plane.jpg) it weights 150 mg so an average fly could provide more than enough power; however a fly trying to go around would probably knock the plane out of balance by changes in the thrust line, so what you´ll need is a very stable plane and a single fly; two flies may not agree on a single course, thus thrusting in different directions, thus the plane goes down out of control. Never mind four flies… :rolleyes: To sum up, is perfectly possible to build a plane that only needs as much power as a fly can generate, however there´s no way to be sure the fly will cooperate with the experiment. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/10 "2003-08-15T04:11:58Z")
Woohoo! Numbers! Thanks **Ale**! Assume each fly can carry about 200mg. A Boeing 747-400 has a maximum takeoff weight of 396,900kg. It would require 1.9845 trillion flies. Considering that each housefly is about 40-50mg (assuming that Ale is using an ‘average’ fly and not some super-mutant fly, call it 45mg), the total mass of flies is ~90 (metric) tons. And that’s not including the weight of the glue/fly harnesses, so you probably can add another 20% to that figure. :Bows: Thank you, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Cleric](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@Cleric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleric)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/11 "2003-08-15T04:25:55Z")
if it works…is there any videos of this? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/12 "2003-08-15T04:44:27Z")
[Welcome to FlyPowerÂŽ. In case you are interested, you have now entered the only site on the Internet totally devoted to the intricacies and pursuit of fly powered avionics.](http://www.flypower.com/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/13 "2003-08-15T04:58:15Z")
Many moons ago in the old Belive it or Not, I think, a guy showed up with a fly powered plane, like the one I made but about twice as big. A fly powered 747!? not a chance, assuming you could assemble nearly 2000 trillion flies over the plane structure, and you could convince them to flap in the same direction, still you wouldn´t have the neccesary lift or thrust to move anywhere. Flies would be too cramed on the plane surface to either be able to beat their wings or to produce an airflow past it´s nearest mate. Besides you´ve got a scales issue here, let´s use my plane for example, it weights 150mg, and let´s say it has a wing area of 10sq/cm, then the wing loading (weight/wing area) would be 15mg per sq cm. Let´s make the plane ten times bigger, the mass increases by the cube (think of small cubes, a 1cm side cube weights 1 grame, if you multiply the linear dimension per ten then you´ll have a large cube with 10 cm sides, that big cube will hold 10x10x10 1cm cubes, so it will weight 1000 grames) so the mass goes up to 150_150_150 = 3375000 mg; meanwhile the wing surface area increases by a factor of 2, so it´s 10\*10= 100 Then the wing loading of the bigger plane turns out to be 3375000/100= 33750 mg per square cm, so the wingloading of the big plane is 2250 times bigger! ---
**Author:** ![SkyBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@SkyBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkyBum)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/14 "2003-08-15T07:44:25Z")
I saw that Believe It or Not episode when I was about 12. Really cool to see it in action. Thanks for reminding me… ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/15 "2003-08-15T12:37:15Z")
On a large scale, would there be any aerodynamic disturbances that build up from all the fly wings flapping? Would they disturb the air too much if you had too many together in an area trying to provide lift and thrust? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-making-a-plane-out-of-flies-be-possible/195297/16 "2003-08-15T20:58:23Z")
On the CD _Just Another Band From L.A.?_, the Mothers of Invention sing a tale of Billy The Mountain. In the middle of it, Studebaker Hoch, the superhero of the current recession, uses flies to get from L.A. to New York. I’ll paraphrase here, because Frank Zappa was touchy about copyrights, and I honor his memory. Studebaker Hoch made a set of wings from cardboard, Kaiser broiler foil, and blunt scissors. He walked into a telephone booth in a supermarket parking lot, closed it, and dropped his pants. Then he coated his exposed self with Aunt Jemima’s Syrup to attract flies. When he had enough flies, he spoke to the flies, saying, “New York!” Then Studebaker Hoch and the phone booth rose into the sky! (Incredibly groovy SH theme music here.) Billy the Mountain, copyright 1972, Frank Zappa