

First test with wings (Man builds human powered bird wings) - aresant
http://www.humanbirdwings.net/about/first-test-with-wings/

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ljb
I think it will never work. Human muscles are way too weak related to our own
body weight.

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humbledrone
The human body can certainly generate enough power to fly:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross>

Bird-type flight does seem substantially more difficult, though. I think that
somehow the legs will need to be involved, rather than just the arms.

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sopooneo
Yes. Those pedal planes require an extremely fit athlete working near the top
of their range. And they efficiently exploit the _leg_ muscles. I haven't
tried, but I would not be surprised if it is provably impossible to sustain
flight with just your arms.

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Someone
"Provable", in this space, is a relative term. We just cannot know how strong
arms can get, given sufficient exercise, hitherto unknown ways of training,
nutrition, etc, and drive. Evolutionary, birds give counterexamples to that
claim.

To see whether one could fly a gossamer-albatross type device by arm power
alone today, I would look for a paraplegic or someone born with very small or
no legs who has spent years in a wheelchair, preferably doing, say, cross-
country running in it.

