Houston, we have liftoff: HumanBirdWings guy finally enjoys the miracle of human flight UPDATE
March 21, 2012 | Source: TechCrunch
Jarno Smeets, famous for his HumanBirdWings project, may just have made semi-self-propelled aeronautical history, flying over 100 meters on his self-built wings. His inspiration: the albatross.
UPDATE: The ‘birdman’ is FAKE
If this video doesn’t inspire you, nothing will. — Ed.
Comments (18)
by Franck Dernoncourt
People misuse Internet so much…
by Brett Guillory
It is a hoax. The guy came out and said so. Geez.
by Spikosauropod
It will be funny if, after all these experts have weighed in, Smeets does a demonstration in front of all of them where they are able to inspect his equipment, and he is able to take off and land exactly as shown in the video.
by Thomas
..it will also be impossible.
by Pablo
Hey Spikosauropod, how’s that demonstration looking now?
Rather than get mad at those “experts” you mocked who said all along that this was a hoax, you should spend some time thinking about why you didn’t figure out it was a hoax. Just saying.
by Tellyou
Evidence of Human Birdwings flying hoax piles up
http://www.gizmag.com/jarno-smeets-human-birdwings-video-cgi-fake/21899/
by Matthew Fuller
The person who posted this link is a smart women, even though she got fooled this time. People believe what they want to believe, don’t they? Even trained physicists.
by John Doe
There’s numerous things in the cut that are “off”. The blurring of the take-off, the unlikely body position relative to the contraption in-flight in which he magically maintains a horizontal position, the landing cover-up.
We’re still a while away from fooling the brain’s millions of years of experience in detecting when something isn’t quite right.
by Jos
This is nothing less than a remarkable achievement.
These students are smart and determined, an excellent combination.
by Spikosauropod
So now we wait.
If it is real, there will be a lot more news coverage and a lot more demonstrations with a lot of qualified experts on hand.
by Cypherl
It is not correct or cute to fool people on a poor understanding of physics. Why do all the supposedly technically proficient websites continue to perpetrate this hoax. This is sad commentary on the status of civilization.
by Dylan
CGI
by Vincent
Interesting critic:
…
9. There are a total of 14 movies on YouTube of Jarno
1-4: 1st april fool day. Clear.
…
(In dutch: http://www.vice.com/nl/read/waarom-de-vliegmachine-van-jarno-smeets-nep-is)
by Thomas
Yes, of course! Why did those science guys (and gals) at the Dryden Research Facility have to use all that icky math to make the Gossamer Albatross and Condor when they could have just cobbled together some of DaVinci’s wings?
The answer, of course, is that one is real and what you see above is made by a couple of idiots and aimed at a similar audience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross
by Pablo
It’s a hoax. If this were real it would be ALL OVER THE NEWS. These guys will someday come out and admit that they’ve been making fools of a ton of people. It’s done with CG.
by Editor
“Hoax”: Well, here’s an analysis that may stoke your skepticism: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/analysis-of-the-human-birdwings/
by Vincent
If it would be fully-self-propelled it would be hoax, but with this schematic I am not sure at all:
http://www.humanbirdwings.net/wp-content/gallery/schetsen/backplate.jpg
- Note the batteries.
by Spikosauropod
A lot of aeronautics experts think this is a hoax. I hope it is real, but I am not placing any bets.