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Vehicle: Aircraft: Human Powered
Undulating Wright Glider   (+5, -4)  [vote for, against]
Wing warping extended into undulation

My theory is that wing-warping, the patented steering system of the Wrights -- in which one wing is warped downward and the other warped upward in order to turn, is really just undulation and is propulsive if exagerated. So a Wright-style glider built with really adaptive wings and harnessed so that the pilot could warp the wings back and forth in a similar way to the way skateboarders "click clack" to propel themselves forward, would allow for human powered undulating flight.
-- JesusHChrist, Feb 17 2005

Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers http://wrightstorie...he-wright-brothers/
Bell introduces alierons to get around Wright patent [JesusHChrist, Oct 06 2011]

Colorado and Washington legalize weed, share a "Super Bowl" http://www.latimes....story#axzz2rDeWXd7p
[JesusHChrist, Jan 23 2014]

Another way this might work is to have two biplanes in a row and have them manipulatable so that when the front bi plane tilted to the right, the back biplane tilted to the left and vice versa. This would require lots of pulleys and things though -- generally a recipe for disaster.
-- JesusHChrist, Feb 17 2005


Try extending your arm out an open window of a moving car and twisting your open hand slowly up and down, the wind flow will raise and lower your arm effortlessly. Oh. By the way. Make sure there are no oncoming vehicles when attempting this. They will remove your outstretched arm just as effortlessly. Remember. If God had meant us to fly he would have removed the law on Weed
-- Ah Supp, Oct 05 2011


If god had meant us to fly, he would have devised a better baggage handling system.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 05 2011



Not so!

Once one
dismisses
The rest of all possible baggage handling systems.
One finds
That this is
the best of all possible baggage handling systems.
-- mouseposture, Oct 06 2011


You should not be so quick to mock the humble baggage- handler. When the USA's primary economic role has finally devolved to being a stop-over point between the nations that control all the world's industry and commerce, baggage-handling will be a skill held in high virtue.
-- Alterother, Oct 06 2011


See link for cool story of how Alexander Graham Bell (significantly from the Deaf community) introduces alierons into the Wright Brothers wing warping design in order to get around the Wright patent and in the process starts WWI, WWII, and the rest of the 20th century etc., not to mention law-suiting Wilbur Wright to death (1912), and reinventing or at least reintroducing the wheel completely unnecessarily into the already perfectly workable undulatory process. Eureka!
-- JesusHChrist, Oct 06 2011


^Eventually ailerons either would have been invented or metal aircraft wouldn't have been.

Meanwhile the post is basically turning the wings into reciprocating propellers, yes ? cool [+] probably wouldn't work worth a damn though.
-- FlyingToaster, Oct 06 2011


Imagine really floppy wings reciprocating in gigantic figure 8s.
-- JesusHChrist, Oct 06 2011


possibility of being less airsickness-inspiring than an ornithopter.
-- FlyingToaster, Oct 06 2011


<<If God had meant us to fly he would have removed the law on Weed>>

See link for news of American Football teams from the two states that legalized marijuana getting together to share a "Super Bowl".
-- JesusHChrist, Jan 23 2014



random, halfbakery