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Yes [SharpestSpoon], like the Leonardo design, except not based on a wheel-berring-axle thing. Wheels are like Republicans because they show that you can pretend that friction doesn't exist -- and Wings and undulation and everything in nature except for wheels are like Democrats because they show that friction works best when it is spread out to every part of a system as evenly as possible. The Wright Brothers' patent was based on Democratic undulation and the Alexander Graham Bell workaround of that patent and almost every plane since has been based on Republican ailerons, which is why WWI and II happened and why modern planes are so big and so fast. If we would have stuck with the basic concept of the Wright Brothers undulatory design we would have optimized that design down to having man-powered adaptive undulatory flying people suits within a decade -- instead of having to have gone through two world wars and the rest of the twentieth century... is my wager |
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I know that I've seen this type of contraption before, an early failed attempt at flapping flight but I can't find a picture anywhere. It looked like a semi rigid umbrella with its pole attached to a motor, (steam I think), that would raise an lower rapidly. |
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Yeah, that was the picture I was looking for too. The guy just sort of bounced up and down for awhile. Seems like it would have worked if he (the guy in the picture) had a longer pole or a smaller, faster moving umbrella. |
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