**** Gizmag on the potential validity or not of this event****
I would just like to thank all the forces in history from the ancient Greeks to now, that have conspired to allow this moment to happen.
Unless I am mistaken, this is a first of sorts. But even if not, it is a truly beautiful thing nonetheless. It is a product of the enlightenment. A dream of Leonardo Davinci. A testament to what is best in the human conditions of both determination, frivolity and the courage to dream. Perhaps I am making too much of this, but these are the sorts of things I have lived for since being a child. Portable phones with video. Landing on the moon! And human powered flight.
Thank you for indulging me.
Eeyore.
Unfortunately, this seems to have been a clever hoax. The credentials of the guy don’t check out. (I wish it was true, though….)
damn.
True or not…….to fly is to be free…….
I often have dreams in which simply flapping my arms allows me to fly…..these are dreams from which I do not want to awake….
I highly recommend watching the movie “Gattaca”……
And I leave you with excerpts from the poem “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson…..sums up the indefatigable spirit of those who pursue their dreams..
Ulysses,
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all—
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Regards, Don Laird
Edson, Alberta, Canada
You are right. That was absolutely flippin awesome! Wow!
F22Ross (Twitter)
Didn’t I read about this, didn’t he fly to close to the sun and plunge into the ocean?
This video was denounced on the Discovery channel last night (show Daily Planet) as being a hoax. It is a good one tho’ and many will be fooled. After all, it is a human dream . . .
Ramjet:
Thanks I posted a link to Gizmag on it at the top. Gizmag by the way, is a lot of fun. I recommend that everyone subscribe to their Monday to Friday newsletter. Always a great way to start the day.
I didn’t take the post down because I think there is so much optimism even in the desire to achieve this. But I suppose I probably should. How disappointing.
Reminds me the beginning of Hudson Hawk. Ha!
I wish it were true, but if it were the man would soon tire and fall.
A bird’s wing, the way I understand it, folds partially on the up/forward stroke therefore reducing drag and then opens out on the down/backstroke, which because of the interlocking feathers provides forward thrust, the shape of the wing and the forward motion producing lift.
It’s difficult to see how a relatively crude device such as this could provide the necessary physical complexity and ratio of weight to power to sustain flight.