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Real-life Ornithopter to Take Flight? 170

Posted by Hemos from the duncan-idaho-would-be-so-proud dept.
A reader writes "According to this article at space.com, researchers at the University of Toronto have designed and built a working ornithopter. Their design will (hopefully) lift off solely powered by the motion of its articulated wings. First envisaged by Leonardo da Vinci, many will recall ornithopers' prominent role in Frank Herbert's Dune books. The U. Toronto Ornithopter project page is is found at ornithopter.net." "Usul ? , Base of the Pillar"
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Real-life Ornithopter to Take Flight? More

Real-life Ornithopter to Take Flight?

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  • Why else would you waste deck-space for a 0/2 flying?
    • Gah, beat me to it...

      Seriously, though, don't knock the psychological value of dropping an Ornithopter down. Your opponent will laugh so hard that he won't notice the killer combo you're setting up. :)
    • I've been killed by one of those...spinal graft it to a 3/5 flyer, and you got problems...

    • actually you beat me to the obvious magic referrence, damn you!

      ornithopters have been flying for years in the magic world!

      i also think it should be noted that only *piloted* ornithopters are non-existant, i'm sure everyone's seen little model ones you can buy at the store (the most famous of which being the wound rubber band plastic bird.)
      ...dave
    • I'm pretty sure it costs 0 mana to place, so it's an easy creature to get out there. As earlier posters pointed out, you can also build up its attack power and use it to do some damage.
    • It's not too bad in conjunction with Enduring Renewal. It's 0 Casting Cost helps with Ashnod's Altar or Life Chisel. Although I prefer Shield Sphere myself. Btw, who can forget the Atog? Love those rule-breaking possibilities...
    • Cheap creatures in enhancement decks are always good, especially ones that come with enhancements of their own (ie: flying). Spinal graft was already mentioned, but there's also regneration, inviolability, entangler, rancor, and a whole slew of other enchantments that make ornithopter a card worth having.
    • I'm embarrased to say that's the first thing I thought of, and haven't even touched a Magic card in years.

      No actually, come to think of it, I'm not embarassed, Magic is a cool game in many ways.
    • 1st turn Ornithopter, Tropical Island, Mox Diamond, Rancor the Ornithopter twice 2nd turn Land, Unstable Mutation, Wild Might, attack for 12 with an ornithopter Don't knock the 'thopter =P
      • You forgot to berserk it! You MUST Berserk the Ornithopter for optimal smackdown application!!!

        Kintanon
        • Heh... my turbo-thopter deck was in the extended format... berserk isn't a legal card or else DAMN RIGHT I'd berserk it =P You could kill on turn 2 with berserk I think... first turn Ornithopter, Tropical Island, Rancor, Seal of Strength. Second Turn Land, Wild Might, berserk, attack for 20 =P
    • At least I think they got played. There was an old deck called "Fruity Pebbles" based around Ornithopter (0/2 for 0 mana), Goblin Bombardment (Enchantment: Sacrifice a creature to deal 1 damage to something), and Enduring Renewal (If one of your creatures dies, it returns to your hand). Of course, the smarter players used Shield Wall and Phyrexian Walker as more efficient 0cc creatures, but the deck could and did indeed win tournaments.

      -Ted
      • pardon the off topic comment, but a sacrificed creature did not 'die' it goese dirctly to the graveyard. effects that aply when a creature dies doese NOT apply for a sacrifice. unless the enduring renewal. (can't remember the card) specificaly mentions sacrifice, it doesn't apply. (well if it says 'goes to the graveyard' without limiting itself somehow, then maybee)

        Kasey
    • Never underestimate the comedy potential that can be made by use of the appropriate creature enchantments.

      I tap my ornithopter to kill your Scryb sprite
      I tap my ornithopter to prevent 1 damage
      I attack with my Unholy Strengthed ornithopter
      Oh, all those creatures died? How many, five? I put five +1/+1 counters on my ornithopter....

      My commiserations to all Magic players who have ever been killed by an Ornithopter.
  • Google cache for Ornithopter.net [google.com]. For the link wary

    http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=lan g_ en%7Clang_fr%7Clang_de&q=site%3Awww.ornithopter.ne t+ornithopter

    Cheers,
    Toby Haynes

  • hmm, strange opening paragraph (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 3prong ( 241218 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @01:47PM (#2326195)

    The article's first paragraph says ...But the oldest concept of how a machine would fly, based on the action of bird's wings, still hasn't taken flight.

    Kind of misleading. The Wright brothers' design was based almost exactly on the bird's wing, but in the bird's "gliding" mode (wherein the curved top surface creates faster moving air, which causes lower air pressure above, which effects lift).

    The Wrights wisely avoided the complicated "flapping" mode of wings by creating the necessary forward motion using a prop.

    • "based on the action of bird's wings"

      This is referring to movement of the wings, not its ability to change the dynamics of the air around them.
    • The "oldest concept of how a machine would fly" is not necessarily the Wright brothers. Leonardo DaVinci had winged-machine designs. And "based on the actions of a bird's wings" is not the same as "designed after a bird's wings". The former sentence includes the dynamics of the flight.

  • Cordwainer Smith [corwainersmith.com] wrote about them long before F. Herbert was done writing Dune.

  • Superman!!!???? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jhill ( 446614 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @01:48PM (#2326201) Homepage
    Look, up there in the sky. It's a bird ... It's a plane ... No wait ... what the hell is that?!?!?

  • Usul? (Score:1)

    by Elgon ( 234306 )
    Usul means the strength of the base of the pillar IIRC.

    Elgon - A storm is coming. Our storm. And when it arrives it will shake the universe.
  • I can't wait until they start developing Telethopters and Roterothopers!!

  • The (slashdotted) article (Score:4, Informative)

    by 3prong ( 241218 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @01:50PM (#2326217)
    Ornithopter

    Advanced design is relying on nature's model more and more: from "fish scales" that speed up boats, to robotic actuators that limber up synthetic muscles and joints. But the oldest concept of how a machine would fly, based on the action of bird's wings, still hasn't taken flight.

    Envisioned first by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 1500's, an "orinthopter's" major design dilemma is getting the up an down motion of the wings to be strong enough for lift off, while not destroying the body of the plane in the process. Modern piloted ornithopters, despite Kevlar and Plexiglas, are thus still on the ground.

    But researchers at the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies claim their machine will either get off the ground in the next few weeks, or prove that a bird-brained plane is an impossible design challenge.

    "It's been a balancing act, challenging the aerodynamics and structural dynamics," said Derek Bilyk, an engineer who came to the project as a graduate student three years ago. " This fall, we will have taken the aircraft to the limits of its performance, but we're pretty sure it's gonna fly; ninety percent sure."

    The researchers have reason to be optimistic. The ornithopter did achieve a take-off speed of 55 miles-per-hour last month, powered only by an engine and its bird wings. But the bouncing of the craft was reportedly very uncomfortable for the pilot and may have shaken the plane toward destruction and so the plane was stopped.

    Bilyk revealed the landing gear has since gone through a redesign to make it more shock-absorbent, which the eight man team believes will make a viable aircraft, albeit a likely commercial flop.

    "I can't think of a good commercial use for it," lamented Bilyk. "But nobody has been successful at it, and yet it the oldest dream of flight."

    http://www.ornithopter.net/index.html

    • Advanced design is relying on nature's model more and more

      Not always. We don't have cars with any kind of legs, they all use wheels. For the same reason, we have planes which have aerodynamics for lift and engines for thrust.

      I can't think of a good commercial use for it

      In the same way, I can't think of a good one for a car with four legs either. It just isn't as efficient.

      Of course there's a reason why birds don't have engines and we don't have wheels...

      • A car with four legs is as useful as an elephant would be. Kind of useful, if the terrain is covered with blown-down leg-heigh snags that wheels would have a hard time going over. Plus elephants can walk down extremely steep hillsides, angles so steep that humans would be terrified to try them.


        Anyway, a four-legged car, if it was sure-footed enough, would be like a super-mule! And pretty useful, in certain situations.


        Kind of like the two-legged "legbarrow" (not sure what else to call it) that the Berkeley robotics group was making. It's powered by a chainsaw engine, and didn't look like it possessed good foot-placement abilities, but it might be useful as one end of a walking stretcher for moving wounded people... the back end is a normal person, guiding it around. Kind of cool.

        --Tom Y

  • Maybe it's just me, but ornithropter reminds me too much of a combination I used to love dearly. Cast Enduring Renewal; Cast Ashnods Alter; Cast Ornithropter; Sacrifice Ornithropter to ashnods alter to gain two generic mana, return ornithropter to hand because of enduring renewal; repeat action until you have about 30000000 mana and then cast fireball. :)
    • could someone arrange for all RPG related posts to be instantaneously transferred back to the RPG dimension whence the came? it's absolute gibberish these fools talk. THEY NEED PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP THESE FEAKS, THEY HAVE DISEASED BRAINS.
      • RPG? What RPG? There is nothing here related to role playing. Magic: The Gathering is just a strategic collectible card game.

        Sure, it has some fantasy images, but you can't call everything that has fantasy elemnents a 'role playing game'. Ornithopter is a (lame) MTG card, so this is at least borderline on-topic...
    • Not to be pedantic, but that gives you arbitrary mana, not infinite
  • Can't find the casting cost ANYWHERE.
    If it's still 0 I'll buy some !!!
  • It seems like a big problem with this type of machine would be that the upstroke would tend to push the plane downwards. So, even if the structure was powerful enough to push the plane upwards on the downstroke, each upstroke of the wings would push the plane back down for a net effect of zero lift. The solution in my mind would be to have the wings tilt on the upstroke so they slice through the air and then flatten out on the downstroke.

    Mind you, I'm not an engineer. But as a kid, I did build a pair of wings to strap on to my arms. I was really convinced it would work. I imagined how impressed my neighbors would be when they saw me soaring overhead. Alas, when I jumped off our doghouse with the wings strapped to my arms, the dream came to an end.

    • Birds do it. They stay up in the air. I don't see why we shouldn't be able to do it, too.

      The only problem I see is that this really won't be efficient compared to other methods of flight. It is efficient for birds because (1) they have a lighter skeletal structure (humans don't) and (2) birds don't know how to use jet fuel properly.

      Joking aside, since humans weigh so much, this will take a lot of force for a little lift compared to conventional flight methods (props, jet propulsion, etc.)
      • I'm pretty sure that when birds fly, they shape their wings in such a way that they reduce drag on the upstroke. Just like when humans swim, we cup our hands to "grab" the water when propelling ourselves forward, but when the stroke is done, we make the hand go limp to reduce drag as we pull it back into position for the next forward stroke. I think birds do a similar thing in the air. A rigid airplane wing would presumably have difficulty doing that.
      • Efficiency is not what you really want to talk about here. The flapping wing style of flight may be more efficient than rotorcraft or jets. The problem is in the absolutes like speed, jets and rotorcraft have the potential to be much better than ornithopters at this.
    • That sounds a very reasonable argument. Bird wings, for example, tilt differently on the "up" and "down" strokes, and you'd get exactly nowhere if you rowed with the oars in the water & the same angle at all times.


      IIRC, a bird's wings move forward & up, at an angle, round, then down almost straight, to produce a net lift.

      • I think feathers have something to do with increasing birds efficiency in this respect. On the upstroke, the feathers spread and align in such a way that the wind passes through and between them. On the downstroke, they overlap together and 'balloon' to capture the air.

        There's also the rigid leading edge that drags the feather up at an angle that cuts through the air on the upstroke, but which also supports the 'ballooning' on the down stroke. The aircraft seems to capture this aspect, but not that of the feathers, which would require a LOT of engineering!

    • It seems to me that birds don't just "flap" their wings up and down. They use them similar to the way a rowing a boat is...when a birds wings are moving down they are spred out to give them more lift...when they bring them back up the tilt them so there is less air being caught on their wings. If you ever watch the specials on hummingbirds when they slow them down you can see the difference in the way they move thier wings up and down.

      I don't think it will work if they haven't came up with a way of reducing resistance on the up stroke...
      • It isn't just a question of reducing resistence on the up stroke. The fact of the matter is that birds don't fly by pushing themselves upward. Thinking about it a bit will show how such isn't even possible.

        Birds fly just as airplanes do, by using a propeller to generate *forward* thrust, and thus airflow over the airfoil surface.

        A bird's wing twists on the downstroke in such a manner as to drive it *forward.*

        Think of it as a variable pitch prop that can only move up and down, and/or as a previous poster has pointed out, an oar consisting of the large primary feathers of the wingtip.

        KFG
        • The fact of the matter is that birds don't fly by pushing
          themselves upward. Thinking about it a bit will show how such isn't even possible.


          Sounds impossible to me too... but try telling that to this guy [duncraft.com].

          • Hummingbirds are the exception. They are the helicopters of the bird world. And just like helicopters they pay dearly for the ability.

            Even so the hummingbird isn't all that different. Just as the helicopter uses a rotating wing with varible pitch, pushing the wing itself forward through the air and then feathering it on the back stroke, so does the humming bird. The rotation just happens in a different plane.

            KFG
    • another solution (or you can combine them) is to have the wings bend in the centre (/\) so there is less wind resistance. they straighten out as you flap down. problem is that you'd get more turbulence.
  • "It's a good thing they reevaluated all those wacky old designs." Hugh Parkfield, episode 2F15 "Lisa's Wedding"

  • But researchers at the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies claim their machine will either get off the ground in the next few weeks, or prove that a bird-brained plane is an impossible design challenge.

    So if their current project doesn't work, we can all stop working on the problem. They've done everything that can be done, learned everything that can be learned, tried everything that can be tried. We have finally reached the limits of human knowledge.

    Whew. Thank God that's over. All that exploration and research was starting to get exhausting.

  • I'd like to know if there's any kindo of economic issue. I know that today is much more expensive, but what about in the future, is it a technology that worth?

    Hey, don't forget that I'm talking about direct issues, I know that it'll surely improve aerodynamics, and mechanics and other sciences. I wanna know about the ornithopter itself.

    • I'd like to know if there's any kindo of economic issue. I know that today is much more expensive, but what about in the future, is it a technology that worth?
      Unless they come up with some radical new insight, this will more than likely end up as a "because we can" type of project. Off the top of my head, I can't think of applications where this would displace the types of aircraft we already use. Still, you can't deny the hack value...it's like the totally useless demos that are still interesting to watch.
  • I left Toronto about 6 years ago and they had flown this (or something similar) before then.
  • the rubber bandit! Unfortunately their site [rubberbandit.com] is down right now, but google cache [google.com] gives you an idea: a giant rubber-powered airplane that is supposed to fly a person some day. A journalist' comment about what mess it would be if the rubber band broke still makes me laugh.
    • >a giant rubber-powered airplane that is supposed to fly a person some day.

      Welcome to Condom-Air!
      I can just see the reaction in the Midwest Bible-Belt as giant phalluses fly overhead...

      >what mess it would be if the rubber [...] broke

      Of course, that's how you make NEW airplanes!

  • Shai Hulud (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:10PM (#2326341)
    Screw the 'thopter. I'd rather have a 300 meter worm.
    • I got yer 300 meter worm right here....


      Sorry, couldn't resist.


      As an aside, Tim O'Reilly wrote a critical monograph about Frank Herbert and Dune in 1981 and has put it on the web here [oreilly.com].

    • then build a 300 meter worm.
      might have a little bit of trouble parking it, but i suppose you could just let it burrow into the sand.
      the oil companies would be pissed,t hough
  • If I remember right, it is 0 casting 0/2 flying artifact creature. I used to have some in my Mind over Matter/Tolarian academy deck.
  • OK, so way back in the day, some dude who invented stuff (well actually, the greatest inventor ever, but still) came up with a machine that flapped it's wings like a bird. So, from the article...

    "I can't think of a good commercial use for it," lamented Bilyk. "But nobody has been successful at it, and yet it the oldest dream of flight."

    I don't think I need to say much more. This is nifty, but as with most educational research, is useless.
  • I searched google and found some pictures [google.com]

    Does anyone know which one is the one they are talking about in the artical?

    -Jon
  • Interesting engineering challenge, but how would it be applied in the real world? Too much mechanical complexity to be economically feasible.

  • ok, so maybe fish scales are super efficient, but it seems to me that a turbine is a more robust method of thrust then a birds wing (ignoring gliding at the moment). otherwise, wouldn't nature have evolved birds that fly at 500 mph?

    • A bird may only move in the several miles per hour range, but it does it by eating bits of flowers. A jet engine moves 50-100 times faster but consumes a lot of powerful fuel that has something like 20K-50K times more energy stored in it than those bits of flowers do. Thus, the bird is more efficent, even if he's slower.
  • http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/kazuho/index-e. htm
  • What strikes me with this project, is that the thing still has to go to 55Mph to take off.

    Most bird take off instantly with just flapping.

    Note that the uncomfortable feeling for the pilot on their last test would have been eliminated with instant take off.

    I will not consider the thing a succes as long as instant take off is implemented (or at least take off will running instead of rolling).
    • What strikes me with this project, is that the thing still has to go to 55Mph to take off.

      Most bird take off instantly with just flapping.

      Ever see a swan take off? :)

      The larger birds have to be running at a decent clip before they leave the ground.

      An ornithopter is a *damned* big bird.
      • I saw a film once of albatrosses trying to take off from the beach. Hilarious. It's quite obvious why this is called a "goony bird". This is a quite large bird that spends days in the air. It has extremely long wings for efficient gliding, and has a surprisingly low glide speed for it's weight. But to get off the ground, it has to run fast enough to generate lift and it keeps tripping over the wings...

        Yeah, small birds can just jump and flap. They have light wing loading, and short enough wings that running the tips into the ground isn't much of a problem. Tiny hummingbirds maybe don't even have to jump. But big birds have more wing loading and getting into the air is more of a job. A man-carrying ornithopter must be at least 10 times the weight of any bird capable of flight -- it's going to need quite a takeoff roll, or else something rather special to launch it high enough for the wing flapping to cut in before it crashes.
    • Birds don't just flap and take off. They usually have legs. A good jump forward, or upward, or off the edge, and they get a little momentum.
      • Birds don't just flap and take off.


        I have seen birds just flap and take off, without any jumping to speak of. Certainly hummingbirds can do this (if you can hover and then fly straight up, you can do the same thing starting from a position on the ground, too)

    • What strikes me with this project, is that the thing still has to go to 55Mph to take off.


      That's the easy part.
      The hard part is generating the 1.21 Gigawatts...

  • I've been thinking about building my own (unmanned) ornithopter ever since seeing UTIAS's prototypes flying on Discovery Channel a few years back.

    To eliminate vibration in most of the craft, you can use two pairs of wings arranged dragonfly-style. Diagonally opposite wings would move in one direction, and the other diagonally opposite pair would move in the other direction 180 degrees out of phase.

    The center of mass of the unit stays in one place, and the forces of the wings on the air are symmetrical, so vibration is only in the engine.

    Your thrust would still "vibrate" at twice the wings' flapping frequency, but a shock absorber should take care of that. It's vibrating up and down as the wings flap that's the big problem, and using two pairs of wings solves this problem.

    As for this being an insurmountable design challenge - it isn't. The mechanics of ornithopters and of bird and insect flight have been well-understood for quite a while now. It's just a materials and engineering issue, and we have enough of a handle on both to build ornithopters.

    The real reason why you don't see bird-planes flapping across the sky - and won't in the future - is that using flapping wings is only a benefit for slow-moving craft, and existing slow-moving craft are already adequately efficient (actually, a helicopter might even be _more_ efficient than an ornithopter).

    [For anyone wondering, the efficiency gain of an ornithopter comes from it moving a larger mass of air more slowly to generate thrust; same reason a propeller's more efficient than a jet turbine, and a helicopter's blades are more efficient than an airplane's propeller. You're just limited to a slower speed, due to several concerns.]
  • 1st turn Ornithopter, tropical island, mox diamond, rancor, rancor 2nd turn, Unstable Mutation, Wild Might, attack for 12 I play a deck that does this regularly... don't knock the 'thopter =P
  • "I can't think of a good commercial use for it," lamented Bilyk. "But nobody has been successful at it, and yet it the oldest dream of flight."

    Perhaps next, Bilyk can try the old "Lead into Gold" at least there would be a good comercial use for it :-P
  • After all Toy ornithopters ahve been functional sicen ebfore Iw as a child.. and I'm older then the average slashdotter.

  • The same group also produced a scale model ornithopter that successfully flew a few years ago.

    Feel free to slashdot the following links. 'Mr. Bill' in flight (MPEG [utoronto.ca]) and a bit of background UTIAS Flight Dynamics [utoronto.ca].

  • http://www.utias.utoronto.ca/lowsped.htm

    look under "Ornithopters" heading.
  • the link goes to the wrong place. Here [space.com] is the real site.
  • You think dune, I think Magic: The Gathering. Got an Orny in my first deck ever. Took me months to finally realize how bad the card sucks. =P

    And the hordes cry out, "But it's better than a Kobold!"

    -Kasreyn
  • you see the title of this article, and immediately think someone is ripping off Magic: The Gathering Cards
  • http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /space_gear-2.html

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