Another Ornithopter Takes Off

mnmn writes "Ornithopters have been around for a while, but a professor at the Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies has made progress with his. It flew for 14 seconds and covered a third of a kilometer. However it landed with a bit of a crash. Interestingly it uses a glow jet turbine from RC aircraft."

A Glow Jet Turbine?

[Mindwarp]

As far as I was aware model jet turbines run on Kerosene, just like their bigger brethren. Glow fuel is Nitromethane mixed with a lubricant such as Castor or Synthetic oil.

Re:A Glow Jet Turbine?

[bev_tech_rob]

Ducted fan, maybe?

Den-tist! Jugga jigga wugga! Deli-style! Jugga jigga wugga!

Hey editors, you got it right for once...

[ColdWetDog]

A slashdot article that is

1) Interesting
2) NOT and infomercial or astroturf
3) Has a paragraph to page ratio of greater than 2
4) Has some modicum of detail
5) Not about SCO, Apple, Google or Mr. Bill

Congrats. Of course, the signal to noise ratio is still painfully small. But it's a start.

This machine is way cool but..

[Ougarou]

I doubt anybody would like to sponsor it. As everyone is working on getting things cleaner, this seems like a feul gusler.
Nobody should stop dreaming though, they should open a donation page and print names on the wings!

Re:Hey editors, you got it right for once...

[QuantumFTL]

The easiest way to reduce SNR on things like slashdot, digg, etc is to apply a meta-filtering technique, perhaps through Yet Another Community Portal, but with much smarter filtering technology. A colleague and I have come up with an algorithm that would eliminate most of these problems, but after talking to Digg for a while about it, they weren't interested. If someone with a reasonable chance of success were to set up yet another community portal, I might be inclined to donate my research to its benefit.

Re:birds

[Deadstick]

Precisely. We already have flapping-wing aircraft, and they fly much more efficiently than birds because we know how to make a rotating joint and nature doesn't. Consequently we flap with economical rotary [npr.org] motion instead of energy-wasting reciprocating motion.

rj

Re:A Glow Jet Turbine?

[dunkelfalke]

there is (no shit) a small helicopter powered by a lada (yes, that really bad russian car maker) wankel engine.
read more here [airliners.net]

Manned Ornithopter Flight Already Done

[c41rn]

According to this article [ornithopter.org], manned ornithopter flight had been achieved in 1942 by Adalbert Schmid. Like the ornithopter in the article, it was a manned, engine-powered ornithopter that could take off under its own power. The difference, it seems, is that Schmid's orni' had fixed wings in addition to the flappers whereas the one that flew today had only the flapping wings. Not to discredit or lessen their excellent achievement today, just think the history is interesting.

Incidentally, you can buy some pretty neat ornithopter kits from www.ornithopter.org [ornithopter.org]. I'm not affiliated or anything, just interested in flapping-wing flight and experimenting on a small scale.

The development of flapping wing flight is interesting because it can also have other applications. I am especially interested in the use of 'flapper' designs in water craft (specifically for use in robotics). An interesting use of similar tech can be seen in these kayaks [hobiecat.com]. Intersting stuff.

Re:If the wings had been

[TubeSteak]

They have tons of white meat compared to, say, a crow.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981204b.html [straightdope.com]

Basically, white meat stays white because farmers clip their chickens' wings to keep them from exercising those muscles much.

The more a muscles is exercised, the darker the meat gets.

Boeing might disagree

[bill_mcgonigle]

Precisely. We already have flapping-wing aircraft, and they fly much more efficiently than birds because we know how to make a rotating joint and nature doesn't. Consequently we flap with economical rotary motion instead of energy-wasting reciprocating motion.

There's a project [psu.edu] at Boeing to create a hummingbird-like propulsion system. It says, "Flapping flight may be the wave of the future for aviation." Their system relies on a shape-memory-metal actuator muscle. I'm forgetting at the moment who but there was another group recently that had a big announcement about simulating muscle with shape memory metal systems.

Obviously this is still R&D, but flapping doesn't seem to be down and out just yet. (BTW, I looked it up and a hummingbird wing is just shy of 180 degree rotation with 75% of the lift from the downstroke and 25% of the lift from the upstroke). Energy consumption is high, so portable fusion generators might be a necessary prerequisite for heavy craft.

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