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Flying Dutchman: Man completes successful test flight with custom-built bird wings
Topic Started: March 21 2012, 09:03 PM (171 Views)
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Flying Dutchman: Man completes successful test flight with custom-built bird wings.


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A Dutch mechanical engineer has completed a 100-meter flight by flapping self-designed motorised bird wings with his arms

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- It has been a human dream for centuries: To fly like a bird.

Jarno Smeets, a 31-year-old Dutch mechanical engineer has become the first man in history to complete a successful flight by imitating a bird.
Smeets, 31, used an Android-powered smartphone and Wii controllers to soar above The Hague like a bird with homemade wings

As proven by Smeets during his 1-minute flight on Sunday, flying is no longer reserved for birds or planes.

The The Hague-based engineer safely completed his first flight with a set of custom-designed wings made from kites and windsurf masts, which are motorised and controlled with his arms by using two Wii controllors and an HTC Wildfire S smartphone running Android.

Holding a Wii controller in each hand, his arm movements were picked up and transmitted to the HTC Wildfire S handset which in turn controlled the two electric motors flapping the wings.

"Ever since I was a little boy I have been inspired by pioneers like Otto Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci and also my own grandfather," Smeets wrote in a blog on his website Human Birdwings. All it took in the end was some ingenuity, 8 months of research and persistence for Smeets to succeed.

After he landed, Smeets said it was "the best feeling I have felt in my life".

Human strength alone would have not been sufficient to flap the 150-square-foot wings.

Despite the flight not being human-powered, it has to be hailed as a remarkable achievement.

Critics on YouTube, however, were quick to point out consistencies in Smeets' video footage of the flight. Smeets said the footage was real but had been edited.


Video Link .................... http://youtu.be/GYW5G2kbrKk
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