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Ornithopters are bird-like machines that flap their wings, with most being the size of small birds. Attempts at larger designs have been unsuccessful. Leonardo da Vinci designed the first ornithopter, and hobbyists use bird model ornithopters. The University of Toronto’s Ornithopter Project is the closest to a large ornithopter. The first ornithopter was built in Germany in 1781, and gliders became more popular after the mathematical clarification of flight principles in 1799. Chemically powered ornithopters have potential for surveillance.
An ornithopter is a machine that flies like a bird, flapping its wings. Most Orithoptera are the size of small birds. Larger man-carrying designs have been attempted, but so far without demonstrated success. The airplane-sized ornithopters accelerated to takeoff speed on a runaway, but the full liftoff was never truly successful. The ornithopter was popularized in Frank Herbert’s Dune book series, as well as the recent film Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow.
Bird model ornithopters are available inexpensively and are used by hobbyists around the world. The ornithopter was first designed by Leonardo da Vinci and sketched in detail in his notebooks. Instead of feathers, he used a membrane, showing that da Vinci had a basic understanding of the mechanism of flight. It had to be operated by humans, but it didn’t produce enough lift to take off. The da Vinci ornithopter was probably never built.
The closest we’ve come to a large ornithopter is a project run by the University of Toronto, called the Ornithopter Project. The ornithopter resembles a propeller plane, but lacks a propeller and instead has flapping wings. As previously stated, it has been accelerated to takeoff speed along a runway, but has not yet attempted full flight.
The first ornithopter was probably built in Germany by Karl Friederich Meerwein in 1781 as a proof of concept for heavier-than-air flight. It is said to have flown, but is more likely to have glided after being thrown from a high place. When the aerodynamic principles of flight were mathematically clarified in 1799 by George Cayley, it became obvious that gliders were more convenient than ornithopters, so much research in this direction was abandoned.
Some interesting projects have used chemically powered artificial muscles to flap the wings of small ornithopters. One day, robots like these could be used as bird imitators for surveillance. An advantage of chemically powered ornithopters is that they do not necessarily use combustion for energy and thus spare the sky from pollution.
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