Dutch engineer Jarno Smits has developed mechanical wings that allow humans to fly. Mechanical wings controlled by Wii Remote (2 videos) How to make mechanical wings

Dutch engineer Jarno Smits has developed mechanical wings that allow humans to fly. To fly on his invention, you only need to wave the arms attached to the wings. The entire structure is supported by an aircraft-grade aluminum frame that houses two brushless motors. The electronic stuffing, which controls the engines and reads the flight parameters, Jarno took from individual parts of Android smartphones and the Nintendo Wii console. Human Bird Wings, you can get acquainted with the drawings and the mechanism of action in detail.

Jarno Smits, inventor: "We did it. The other day I flew 100 meters with my homemade wings. I have always dreamed about it and after 8 months of work, research and testing, my dream has come true. "

Smits began working on the project last summer, but the idea itself came to him as a child from his grandfather, who had dreamed of building something similar all his life. The inspiration for the design, he believes, was the flight of an albatross. In his first test, Smits flew about 100 meters, but, according to him, is going to improve the invention.

Desperate to get the lift necessary for flight from the flapping wings, he transferred them to a cylinder in order to get at least only thrust from the wings, the Baden builder Meerwein experimented with another winged projectile.

Meerwein's winged machine (1784) with wings adapted for both rowing and gliding.

Meerwein published his observations, thoughts and descriptions of his machine in a brochure, which was translated from German into French and even into Russian (in 1794), under the title "The Art of Flying on the Bird." In this brochure, Meerwein is the principal enemy of balloons. Here are his statements:

“Using a car that is less costly, much more reliable than balloons, suitable at all times, overcoming bad weather, I will attempt to ride on the etheric waves, considering my flight with a bird ... I will liken my car to a wild duck ... birds. ... Balloons are nothing more than toys invented by physicists for fun ... "

However, Meerwein's car did not go far from the proposals of its predecessors. The pilot had to move the rocker with his hands, with which two wings were connected, waving up and down. The tester was suspended in a recumbent position directly under the wings. Meerwein was the first to calculate the ratio between the weights and the wing area in different birds. Taking the weight of a person together with the wings of about 100 kg, he determines the required area of ​​"human wings" in 14 m2.

Here are the first mechanical wings that were contrasted with balloons in their greatest years. Being a principled opponent of flying in balloons, Meerwein nevertheless believed that his wings would be useful for balloons as well.

“My car can also serve as a steering wheel for balloons,” he wrote in his book.

Another contemporary of Blanchard, Jacob Degen, a Viennese watchmaker, came to this conclusion. A passionate lover of mechanics and an inventor, he was carried away by the flights of Blanchard and Robertson and also decided that for free movement in the air, mechanical wings should be made. He built and tested parachute-like light wings, braced on the racks with braces from below and from above. But unlike Meerwein's flapping wings, Degen's wings only went up and down vertically. Positioned in an upright position on the frame, the tester worked with the wings using a horizontal bar.

The lift force in such a machine was formed, first of all, due to the curved shape of the wings, as if parachuting when moving down. Degen used petal-valves in the design of the wings, which during the downward stroke of the wings remained closed and opened during the upward stroke. Degen's wings were made very gracefully and delicately from lightweight reeds, to which small, downward-leaning petals (valves) were tied with silks, as if reproducing bird feathers. Having more than one thousand petals, each wing weighed only 2.5 kg with a width of about 3 m and a length of about 3.5 m. The machine, together with the frame, weighed only 14 kg.

Degen in his tests gradually achieved that he could climb by car, on a rope suspended through a block, having a counterweight at the other end of the rope just over half the weight of the pilot together with the car. He did such experiments in Vienna publicly in 1805. Trying to make his success much clearer, he came up with a counterweight with blocks to replace a small balloon with a lift equal to the weight of the counterweight. The public test was very successful on November 12, 1808, when Degen, in calm weather, managed to get off the ground and maneuver in the air for several minutes, then rising, then falling. The newspapers then raised a fuss, announcing widely about the successful results of Degen's experiments. The inventor was even encouraged by the government with a monetary award.

His successes, however, ended there.

In 1812 he tried to demonstrate his car in Paris. It was rumored that this attempt was connected with several plans of Napoleon to use "self-propelled" balloons against England.

However, Degen here suffered a complete failure, two of his trials ended in failure. As the newspapers of France wrote, it was not Degen on his wings that moved against the wind under the balloon, but drove the wind wherever he wanted. The third attempt was equally unsuccessful.

In that era, balloon flights forced many to think hard about how to achieve flying without the help of "soap bubbles". Positive works include, for example, the experience with a simple flight toy such as a modern helicopter.

Two Frenchmen, the mechanical physicist Bienvenue and the natural scientist Lonois, published in the Paris Gazette of April 19, 1784, that they had succeeded in achieving a successful flight of a small model, following the model of which it would be by means, without the help of physics. "

The simplest helicopter successfully tested by Longois and Bienvenue (1784)

Informing that they wanted to prepare a display of the aircraft, which, perhaps, would lift both of them, the inventors asked for the time being to register the primacy of their idea and the fact of the flight of the model, which they successfully demonstrated in the editorial office of the newspaper.

After this first step, the inventors took a few days later and the second step, presenting their flight model to the Paris Academy of Sciences. A special commission allocated by the Academy confirmed the ability of the mechanical model to take off easily and responded very favorably about the simplicity of the principle and the ingenuity of the method of the inventors. But at the same time, it was recognized that as the model grows in size, it will become more difficult to achieve its takeoffs.

What was this model?

Its main part is two small propellers made of eight bird feathers, four in each. The hubs for each propeller are plugs fitted at the ends of a lightweight rod.

The propellers are untwisted with a bowstring, which is wound around the rod and tightens the bow, and the bow is fastened to the rod. Such a model takes off vertically upward if the rod is placed vertically.

The toy of Lonois and Bienvenue is remarkable in that it for the first time indisputably proved the possibility of mechanical movement in the air without the help of cylinders. But the efforts of the inventors to achieve on the same principle of flight of large models were not successful. Nevertheless, another scientist soon returned to the idea of ​​a helicopter, whose works in the history of flying are so serious and significant that his name can be put directly behind the name of Leonardo da Vinci.

It was the English mathematician George Cayley (1773-1857).

Kayleigh developed questions of flight on both balloons and mechanical wings. He was the first to apply the means of scientific analysis to the solution of questions of practical flying, that area of ​​theoretical mechanics, which is called aerodynamics.

Here, in aerodynamics, mechanical wings, which later entered into competition with balloons, were their most faithful allies.

It's been a long time since I had such a long-term construction! Almost six months ago, I got involved in a project that seemed very interesting to me - for the costume of one character, it was necessary to make the wings "life-size" so that they automatically unfold, fold, hold in both positions, do not interfere with walking and sitting on a chair, and so that at the ends of the wings there are movable feathers - "fingers" ... phew ...

Since I like to come up with all sorts of technical things, I took up the implementation. It took a month and a half for sketches, drawings, discussions with the customer, drawings and even calculations, then it was the turn to saw, drill, glue and sew.
And it worked!
The whole structure is mounted on a steel plate curved to the shape of the customer's back. The plate is fastened on the back in the manner of a backpack - two straps on the shoulders and one with a buckle on the waist.

The frame of the wings is made of fiberglass (10 mm), fastening on the "headscarves" of thin (2 mm) fiberglass with rivets and epoxy. Assembly of the structure, mainly on movable rivets. Opening drive - one spring per wing. I have been looking for the right attachment points for the springs for a long time ... In the closed state, the wings are fixed with two latches, opening with the fingers with a side-down movement.


Closing is simple with your hands, with a simple and natural movement.



The closing mechanism, which was supposed at the beginning, unnecessarily complicated the design, and we abandoned it. At the ends of the triangular frames of the wings, there are three "fingers" molded from ABS plastic. When the wings are open, we insert our fingers into the rings and move our "feathers" ...


The structure is painted with auto enamel in the color of the fabric from which the cape is sewn, showing the plumage of the wings.




The drape covers the entire mechanism at the back and front. Well, all this is put on the "skin" (pants, shirt and gloves) of the corresponding color. The cap and the "skin" were sewn by my wife.
Voila:





Video work (sorry for the quality, but what do we have ...)
disk.yandex.ru/client/disk|slider/disk/141_2867.MOV
And here we have a winged pony postman from the series about magic ponies!


The suit debuted at the Moscow Bronikon-2015 and was a success.

Although not exactly steampunk, there is a spring mechanic! This prompted me to brag about the publication, but natural modesty demanded publication in my personal blog ...