Thread: Why wouldn't Da Vinci's flying machine work?

Question in title.

http://artfiles.art.com/5/p/LRG/14/1...ng-machine.jpg

Above is the flying machine I'm referencing.

Thrust to lift ratio is too low. Lift to weight ratio is too low.

Originally Posted by cypress

Thrust to lift ratio is too low. Lift to weight ratio is too low.

Do you think there is any way to create a man-powered flight machine? Me and a friend are thinking about it, and willing to put the time and effort behind making it if it's possible.

Beside man power is too low, another problem is the design.
Obviously, the origin design simulated bird flying.
Now we know bird flying is a complicate process, not just the wings up and down.
The design contains only wings up(down) movements, that make it's low efficient.

Originally Posted by bradbradallen

Do you think there is any way to create a man-powered flight machine?

Yes there is, and it has been done.

Originally Posted by bradbradallen

Me and a friend are thinking about it, and willing to put the time and effort behind making it if it's possible.

Why not start your effort by doing a net search?

Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_aircraft

You can watch Gossamer Albatross and Gossamer Condor on YouTube.

Hm. Leonardo's and the glider-types are rather un-inventive. Maybe we can do it outside the box? I mean the box of "single human fly like bird" paradigm.

A funny stunt you can accomplish with a swimming pool full of schoolkids, is by getting them to trudge around and around the pool, all together, they gradually generate a current and central vortex of awesome power. Maybe there's a similar not-quite-obvious means of getting someone airborne through simple teamwork?

Originally Posted by Pong

Hm. Leonardo's and the glider-types are rather un-inventive. Maybe we can do it outside the box? I mean the box of "single human fly like bird" paradigm.

A funny stunt you can accomplish with a swimming pool full of schoolkids, is by getting them to trudge around and around the pool, all together, they gradually generate a current and central vortex of awesome power. Maybe there's a similar not-quite-obvious means of getting someone airborne through simple teamwork?

Haha, quite impressive and forgetive.
But one of the problems is how this team-work design maintain the power. You know the pool and people inside will leave earth while the human-power can not. So the pool or any other teamwork design can't fly high and last for a long time enough. If this can be conquered we will forereach bird pattern.

One design needs a lot of imagination I have read is about the universal gravitation.
It assumes universal gravitation is some kind of wave of which properties is determined by matter, so if there is a vacuum space where antimatter particles can help cutting off the wave the gravity force will be gone and we can fly as our wish.

Great, now all you have to do is create antimatter using your muscle power.

Originally Posted by Leszek Luchowski

Great, now all you have to do is create antimatter using your muscle power.

Oh, the point is that according to quantum theories, vacuum space has some particles in it which makes it's not so 'vacuum' as we think. Some of the particles should be antimatter. So what we need to do is not to create antimatter, we need to make the antimatter particles move in order and stop the matter universal gravitation wave.

I'm trying to answer Pong's bird" paradigm question. Well, treat it as a snack.

We used to put our baby on a sheet, and then jerk it tight so he'd launch into the air. Maybe something like that, but totally new has yet to be invented. Some low-tech means of applying group effort to keep a person aloft.