What Modern Toy Company Has Created a Functional Bird-Inspired Flying Machine?

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LEONARDO DA VINCI’S 15th-century vision of mechanical flight apparently never included fixed wings assisted by propellers or jet engines. His chief inspiration was birds, reflected in drawings of a flying machine fashioned to stay aloft by flapping its wings.

More than 500 years later, WowWee, a robotics and entertainment products company, shares that vision. Next month, it plans to release a mass-produced, functional ornithopter, a device that flies in birdlike fashion — in this case, a radio-controlled toy that mechanically flaps its Mylar wings."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/t...em&ex=1171170000&en=07ceee3fb88de8df&ei=5087
 

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Evo said:
LEONARDO DA VINCI’S 15th-century vision of mechanical flight apparently never included fixed wings assisted by propellers or jet engines.

:smile: I love that sentence. Leonardo was very clever but apparently his intelligence never went as far as inventing the propeller or jet engine.

Nice toy :smile:. Good to see some of his inventions being used for real.
 
Kurdt said:
:smile: I love that sentence. Leonardo was very clever but apparently his intelligence never went as far as inventing the propeller or jet engine.
His bird inspired flying machines aren't the only story. Almost a propeller:

http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/Leo-copter.jpg
 
The real deal
 
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zoobyshoe said:
Almost a propeller:

http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/Leo-copter.jpg

Not really. In order to build a propeller [barring blind luck] one must understand the physics of a wing.

It is interesting to note that boomerangs are a wing. In a sense, the Australian Aborigines were one up on Leonardo and the Wright Brothers.
 
Ivan Seeking said:
The real deal


Interesting but not particularly graceful. :eek:

zoobyshoe said:
His bird inspired flying machines aren't the only story. Almost a propeller:

http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/Leo-copter.jpg

I think that was based more on the archimedes screw than a propeller as Ivan said. I meant only to comment sarcastically on the modern age than to insult Leonardo's intelligence, as the aforementioned sentence seems to imply his lack of insight into propellers and jet engines as a lack of creativity. Its kind of like saying yeah well Newton was good but that Albert really showed him up. Just find it funny :smile:
 
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