Flying Like A Bird: Jarno Smeets, Dutchman, Takes Flight With Human Birdwings (VIDEO)

CORRECTION: On March 20, 2012 we reported the story below. It was subsequently revealed that this story is a hoax. Fox News reports filmmaker and animator Floris Kaayk admitted on Dutch national television the project was "a media art project" and never expected the fictitious video to gain so much attention. For more details, watch the YouTube video.

Flying is no longer reserved for birds or planes. Just ask Jarno Smeets, the man who has mastered human flight with his self-designed birdwings.

As shown in this incredible YouTube video, Smeets takes a running start and then lifts off the ground by flapping his massive brightly colored wings and manages to stay airborne for about 30 seconds.

In this most recent attempt, he was able to fly up to 100 meters, IT World reports.

A mechanical engineer, Smeets' success is the fruit of eight months of research and design for his Human Birdwings Project.

Gizmodo explains the flight isn't achieved with his own arm strength alone. Instead, the flapping motion is magnified by motors controlled by a system Smeets developed using Nintendo Wii controllers and an Android smartphone.

Smeets wrote on his blog that his inspiration for the contraption dates back to his childhood when he found sketches of his grandfather's flying bicycle in the family attic.

Interested in more examples of flying humans? Check out this YouTube clip of former pilot scaling the Grand Canyon with jet powered wings.

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Comments

[sstp525]

10:58 AM on 03/22/2012

Sure, it may be fake, but how cool would it be if it was real? I mean, c'mon, who doesn't want to fly? Who doesn't look up at a flock of birds with envy? Who doesn't want to flip of the airline companies and their ridiculous prices? =]

Yeah, maybe he faked it for his fifteen minutes of fame, but lets just let it entertain our imagination and ponder at the possibilites instead of just saying its fake and cursing the internet for disappointing us yet again.

[aristippe]

10:39 AM on 03/23/2012

Viral ad.

[mkhpalm]

05:53 AM on 03/22/2012

Kind of says something about the journalistic qualities of a site when it covers obvious hoaxes like this as real.

[aristippe]

04:06 PM on 03/22/2012

H.P. . . . journalistic qualities? Bwahahaha. Hey at least it's posted in the Weird News tabloid section.

[Ahmed Ahmad]

03:25 AM on 03/22/2012

He Used an Android instead of an iPhone or iPad? Heresy. It must be a fake.

[aristippe]

04:12 PM on 03/22/2012

This is a probably a viral Campaign, its already been debunked by a number of CGI experts. One expert posted a video where he isolated a couple of seconds and stabilized the shakiness with motion tracking. After watching the video myself the composite CGI was obvious.

[vigilantibus]

02:12 AM on 03/22/2012

Doesn't look right. The inertia and movement of the pilot's body doesn't look weighted and the time it takes to swing and dangle seems to rapid and jerky. It just doesn't work for me. I'm stuck right at the point when her gains altitude and playing it over and over because it doesn't look like natural physics in motion. Sorry.

[Joe Mahma]

11:33 PM on 03/21/2012

..
Fake...

[silverwing]

04:04 PM on 03/21/2012

Uh, Jamie from Mythbusters is referred to as "the toupee guy"? Jamie Hyneman wears a *beret*. (And he's bald, so there's no debate on how natural his hair is).

[InVinoVeritasBC]

03:06 PM on 03/21/2012

Wowsers! That looks like fun. But probably not possible for someone over a certain weight :(

[SoulOfDespair]

01:50 PM on 03/21/2012

I rather be a flying squirrel!

[Blamegirl Roberts]

01:23 PM on 03/21/2012

A bit misleading b/c those wings look like fabric to me.

[maya1]

06:49 AM on 03/21/2012

super cool

[viewsaskew]

12:21 AM on 03/21/2012

A hoax. You can see it in at least 3 ways: (a) his legs dangle down but then gravity seems to melt away and they easily straighten into a prone position (b) the "wings" don't allow the air to pass through them on the upstroke (a bird's feather system locks tight on the down stroke, and are "porous" on the upstroke) and (c) there is no control surface from which to steer (the tips of a bird's wings can providing fine tuning to steer, which is how you keep aloft in a real airflow which isn't 100% uniform. The swelling music is a nice touch though, because we *want* to believe. Basically a video magic trick.

[rjwnz]

06:41 AM on 03/21/2012

I'm not sure about your conclusion about how feathers work, bats and fruit foxes fly extremely well over long distances but only have skin for wings, just like this mans wing surface,.

[silverwing]

04:13 PM on 03/21/2012

You're mixing up "fruit bats" and "flying foxes" (

[viewsaskew]

02:27 PM on 03/22/2012

Good distinction with the bats. However, in the case of bats, they don't "flap" wings but rather they stroke them (much like a person would row a boat). So you are mixing metaphors: the video shows a birdlike flapping, not a batlike rowing.

[IfIonlyknew]

10:18 PM on 03/20/2012

There you have it apple fan boy's.........Flying with a droid.

[Dwight Robertson]

08:39 PM on 03/20/2012

Well, it certainly is encouraging, where will this lead?

[XS VENOM]

07:31 PM on 03/20/2012

Seems like allot of work for very little flight time. He was huffing and puffing at the end of his little flight.