But he is Dutch...
But he is Dutch...
OK, let me get this straight, he flies with just his arm power? That's incredible looking.
I call:
NO way he has enough arm strength to do that. Humans are FAR more dense (in many ways sometimes) then birds, the strength would be required to do that would be immense (and the stronger you get, the heavier you get).
The human powered plane that crossed the English channel required a world class cyclist in a heavily optimized design, no way that design even approaches that. Not to mention it looks like his center of gravity is WAY off (way to far rear).
story is it's powered, uses wii controllers to flap the wings
Well, also the flapping seems extremely unlikely to create the amount of thrust needed. Note pigeon flight:
Note the amount of flapping in the video. And I guarantee pigeon has much better thrust to weight then that guy and the wings.
Hmm...
Weight would be an issue, but with the mechanical assist, might be doable. Weight distribution would be tricky. Sounds like he's got some kind of extra propulsion system (maybe this is apparent in the vids; I can't view at work).
Here's a diagram of the mechanical assist, on his website.
Very DaVinci-esque.
Historically, concepts like this haven't turned out well, but its interesting to see continued attempts.
I say:
Looks like a hang glider with moveable wings. Could work.
Snopes currently says they dunno...
I saw this on grinding.be already (and like a bazillion other places today too.) Here's what was posted over there:
"According to Smeets’ calculations, he needed approximately 2,000 Watts of continuous power to support his roughly 180-pound frame and 40-pound wing pack. His arms could only really provide 5 percent of that, so the rest would have to come from motors. His arms and pecs would basically serve to guide the device and to flap the wings.
He built his electronic, wireless wing set out of Wii controllers, accelerometers harvested from an HTC Wildfire Android phone and Turnigy motors."
So no, he's not using his arm strength. Pretty cool if true though.
I'll just admit it, looks legit to me.
Now he just needs to slap some Redbull stickers on it and jump off a pier
If this were even close to remotely true, the men in black suits would have absconded with him by now. 
... thats fox... and you know you can't trust ANYTHING they say...
As Austin Powers said "I hate the Dutch."
"Do you think I have time for a shmoke and a pancake?"
Javelin wrote: *Ahem* Gentlemen... http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/22/dutch-artist-admits-faking-viral-human-bird-wings-video/
Ugh, woulda been cool if it was real.
I'm late to the party here, but I was gonna call BS based on power to wieght ratio, COG and most importantly the wing motion is all wrong, as per aircooled's illustration of the pigeon. Also, not only is the flapping motion wrong, but in the video there is not much evidence of the air flow over the wings causing them to flex like a kite, hang-glider, parafoil or even a birds wings.
Karacticus wrote: Snopes currently says they dunno...
They've updated their site, it now says false.
aircooled wrote: Well, also the flapping seems extremely unlikely to create the amount of thrust needed. Note pigeon flight:
while it has been proven false... I just wanted to comment.. those pigeon pics appear to be of a pigeon accelerating/taking off. Usually once a bird gets into the air at a "cruising" speed.. they do not need the huge wing movements.. if you ever watch a pigeon when they take off.. their wings actually "clap" together at the top of their movements
If I'd seen that diagram with the "four 5000mAh batteries" before I woulda called BS right then and there. Even if the rest of the contraption worked, there's not enough energy in those batteries to lift a human. That's only 250x the battery capacity of a Flytech Dragonfly, and that thing only weighs a couple ounces, requires a hand launch, and then it flies more like a motor-assisted sailplane than a powered aircraft.
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