One of those fan powered sky dive simulator chambers that senses when you're flapping your arms and turns the fan down if you slow down, turns it up when you go faster and stops completely if you decide "this looks really stupid" and stop all together.
Even the most knowledgeable of aeronautical engineers could "fly" in the face of everything they've ever learned by flapping their skinny little arms and flying about the room.
You would attach units to the wrists that sensors would pick out the location of, but you could also put them on your ankles and run in mid air cartoon style.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2011 Wii resort, anyone?-- 4whom, Mar 14 2011 // aeronautical engineers ... flapping their skinny little arms //
In reality, aeronautical engineers tend toward the plump side ... they tend to be slow moving, and of sedentary habits.-- 8th of 7, Mar 14 2011 Those I've known seem to manage the pot belly and the skinny arms together, but I have yet to meet one who's lost any sleep about not being on the cover of "Beautiful Engineer Monthly"
I'm not 100% sure such a publication even exists.
A typical engineer's dating profile might read: "Enjoy pictures of the beach and short walks to my car".-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2011 Not if they get into this thing. 'Pecs' and 'Lats' that would have fiddler crabs swooning at fifty four feet/podes.-- 4whom, Mar 14 2011 // I'm not 100% sure such a publication even exists. //
There is a widespread but as yet unsubstantiated rumour that there are such things as female engineers.-- 8th of 7, Mar 14 2011 It's my understanding that it was ingyngineer who developed the fuel air bomb which I'm a huge fan of.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2011 //In reality, aeronautical engineers tend toward the plump side ...// Being an aeronautical engineer myself and working alongside many others, my experience tells me otherwise. the vast majority of my coworkers happen to be on the health-conscious and athletic side.
that said, I love this idea, but wonder how you'd modulate the air speed rapidly enough to account for the different terminal velocities in arms-up and arms-down position, and how you'd overcome the general un-airworthiness of the human form. Having some experience in these vertical wind tunnels, I can say that it takes a great deal of effort and/or skill simply to remain centered in the tunnel. "Flapping your arms like a bird" just isn't a stable position.
I can also substantiate that there is such a thing as a "female engineer". However, from a dating perspective, they may as well not exist. Most that I have known are either "not attractive" for some reason (not necessarily physical), not looking, or have that magical combination of sexy and smart that lands them a high-end significant other well before graduation.-- Freefall, Mar 14 2011 I think first you'd make sure the arms specifically don't have those little flying squirrel style wing flaps like they use in flying suits. Then have a cross section to the wind that's as aerodynamically ambiguous as possible.
But if the arms tended to actually catch wind and throw you off, you could attach units to the fingers ionstead so you hold your arms in and fly more like a hummingbird by "flittering" your hands. Not sure I'm describing it well.
But I think that since your arms are just going up and down their cross section to the wind shouldn't change but if it did, you could do the tweety bird thing I tried to describe.
As far as aeroengineer's fitness goes, my uncle was Mr Fit, lived into his 90s. One of those old school tough guys who joined the navy, got out, got his degrees, designed fighters then worked on the Apollo command module for North American Rockwell. Got me all kinds of cool Nasa pictures when I was a little kid.
My dad's also an engineer but tends toward the portly side. I think being an engineer was good enough for him, he didn't need to be an underwear model as well. He's pretty proud of his profession. He always said: "If you ain't an engineer, you ain't shit."
I probably wouldn't go that far.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2011 I applaud his use of double negatives.-- rcarty, Mar 14 2011 Yes.
If you apply Boolean logic to your dad's statement, it's not nice.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 14 2011 It's a charming colloquialism. The second "ain't" is saying "not to the level of" rather than "isn't".
In my early youth I worked for a time as a building plumbing designer. His advice was: "All you need to know is shit runs downhill and payday's Friday."
A little profanity made the lessons a little less tedious.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2011 Probly woulda come out more memorable if he hadn't been leafing through Victoria's Secret's catalogue at the time.-- FlyingToaster, Mar 15 2011 No. Scientific American, Analog, Power and Engineering Review, that sort of thing. Seldom wasn't reading. Subscribed to 3 or 4 newspapers as I remember.
If he had a Playboy tucked away in the pages of those I never saw it. Good for him if he did though.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 15 2011 //"All you need to know is shit runs downhill and payday's Friday."//
heh....and quit chewing your nails!-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 15 2011 //If you ain't an engineer, you ain't shit.//
This is an old running cadence.
Of course, "Engineer" reffers to the "Combat Engineer". One of these days I am going to apply to an engineering job, listing 13 years experience in the engineering field, in my resume...
I and the enterviewer aught to, at least, have a good laugh over it.-- MikeD, Mar 15 2011 I went to an almost pure engineering school, and attractive, available female engineers do exist. They are rare, admittedly (my class was ~3:1 total, and the attractive and available ratio was worse). Admittedly, the lack of social skills tended towards typical engineer, but not always.
Likewise, I am aware of some very fit male engineers (I am not one, but I am workng on it), including aero. A surprising number of engineers are into martial arts, a similar number are in the military (my father and grandfather were both Combat Engineers with the degree to back it up, ROTC at my school was alive and well).-- MechE, Mar 15 2011 Well, even if all engineers were the fattest, ugliest people on Earth, they're the ones who give us, oh, I don't know. Everything?
I believe in a society in balance. Give me 20% engineers, 60% people who actually do the work, 5% who provide the food, 5% healthcare industry, 5% education and no more than 5% leaches, namely politicians, bums etc.
Oh, did I leave out lawyers?-- doctorremulac3, Mar 15 2011 random, halfbakery