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Lucky123

Is this for real?

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My first reaction was, "no fuckin' way. Humans do not have the horsepower available in their arms to do this."

Then I looked at the video a second time.

What they're doing is using arm movements to control, but getting a computer to interpret that and provide a power assist.

I believe the video could, in fact, be real.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I believe the video could, in fact, be real.



Too many red flags in the footage for me.

The close up footage is too close. You don't get to see any shot of the whole construction.

The flight footage, by contrast, is too far away. Too far, too shaky, too blurry. Why is the cameraman standing so far behind him before takeoff? Why do the helpers run away from him? Do they think it's going to blow up?

The trailing edge doesn't work. It's waving up and down, spilling air all over the place, looking exactly like the sort of thing someone who doesn't understand wings would think a fabric trailing edge should look like.

That, and the fact that, well, it's obviously bollocks.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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Too many red flags in the footage for me.

The close up footage is too close. You don't get to see any shot of the whole construction.

The flight footage, by contrast, is too far away. Too far, too shaky, too blurry. Why is the cameraman standing so far behind him before takeoff? Why do the helpers run away from him? Do they think it's going to blow up?

The trailing edge doesn't work. It's waving up and down, spilling air all over the place, looking exactly like the sort of thing someone who doesn't understand wings would think a fabric trailing edge should look like.

That, and the fact that, well, it's obviously bollocks.

Utterly, absolutely bullshit. Thanks for the awesome breakdown on it. :)

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The trailing edge doesn't work. It's waving up and down, spilling air all over the place, looking exactly like the sort of thing someone who doesn't understand wings would think a fabric trailing edge should look like



How about the lack of control surfaces on the wings? Are we to believe that they're articulated to flex like a birds wing?

How about the lack of a tail surface? How do you control the wing without another flight surface to counteract it?

How about the lack of any sort of flare on the landing? Even brids flare.

Why is it that he has a 'take off roll' like a plane? The plane takes time to build up to flying speed, you mean to tell me that with foot power alone, that guy is accelerating that whole time he's running? With that rediculous wing on his back?

Shit, even the Wright brothers knew to find a hill or slope, and use it for the first flights. This guy wants us to believe that flight A-1 of his wings were on level ground in a city park? What if it was an enormous success, why wouldn't he want to be in a more open area to allow him to really 'spread his wings'?

The answer to every question is the same, it's because the video is bullshit.

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Thanks for the link. After seeing better picutres of the wings, and the joke of a harness he claims will hang him securely under those flapping wings (gee, anyone here have any experience in fitting a harness made to hang a human prone under something???) I'm even more sure it's fake.

I just watched three giant hamsters dressed in hip hop clothes doing a coreographed dance routine to some club music on TV. They were selling a Kia Soul automobile. Think that's real? Did Kia breed, dress and teach those rats to dance?

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Have a look at the real thing -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUhnfcm8JTw

Note the articulatuion of the wing, and the way it retracts for minimum drag on the forward stroke, and then opens up and extends for maximum thrust on the back stroke. Note the active tail, and the way it counters the action of the wing, opening up to bracce against the thrust stroke, and closing down during the retracting stroke.

Wasn't there one of those TED talks recently where a group of scientists actually managed to produce a radio controlled, flying mechanical bird? Look up that video and see the genius it took to build a model that could mimic a brids flight, and robotic, herky jerky movement they achieved, but were still revered for due to the massive techincal difficulty.

If the 'flying man' is real, let's see him on the Today show, then I'll buy it.

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My first reaction was, "no fuckin' way. Humans do not have the horsepower available in their arms to do this."

Then I looked at the video a second time.

What they're doing is using arm movements to control, but getting a computer to interpret that and provide a power assist.

I believe the video could, in fact, be real.



I'm skeptical.. the video angles are rather iffy for someone who is really attempting to document an event, and the power requirements to move wings that large fast enough to be effective would be pretty bulky for the size of his harness.

I also have real doubts about the wingspan to weight ratio...his body mass is going to be significantly more than an 'upscaled bird' so his wings should be significantly larger as well... instead they are fairly proportional to many birds....

I say fake.
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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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http://www.humanbirdwings.net/



The machine is real, and surprisingly almost legit. The video, sadly, is not. But the guy did do his homework. I would shake his hand with honor even though he faked it.

What I'm very curious about is if he originally planned on actually flying it, or if he did thousands of man hours worth of R+D just to convince the 14 people worldwide that would not be won over were it not for his extensive website history and planning.

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I'm open to the possibility of it being a hoax, but if it is, it's a damned impressively involved one.



A lot of involvement and poorly executed filming. I could tell as soon as he started running for takeoff it was fake.

Then I found this, and it further confirms my thoughts. http://gizmodo.com/5895235/cgi-experts-say-flying-bird-man-is-fake

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