“Japanese Student Takes Flight of Fancy, Creates Flying Bicycle” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJrJE0r4NkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJrJE0r4NkU)
*Edit: Far beyond regulations and air traffic control issues, only regarding to physics:*
I’ve just seen this video of a Japanese student that has achieved making a flight of about 200 or 300m with a mechanism that turns the pedalling we normally do in a bicycle to the turning of a propeller.
Now, if we as humans and a very great bike can reach 40-50 mph (and very light planes such as cessna can take of with only 60mph – not to mention Bush Planes – all of these weighting easely 4 to 5 times the weight of a person + an extra light airplane design, specifically created for that porpouse) – why does this seems too hard to achieve/sustain? I can only guess its a matter of efficiency (or the lack of it), but which one of them?
In: Physics
A few things:
1) You have a limited amount of stamina. When you get tired, you become a glider or you die.
2) There hasn’t been a compact one that has a smaller footprint than something motorized, which defeats the purpose of making it a bike.
3) Safety. A bird hits you, your chain locks up, the wing tears, it rains, or you hit a power line, you die. The bolts aren’t torqued properly, you die. You have a lapse in judgement about wind currents coming up ahead, you die.
4) You’ll notice that these people have the bare minimum for optimizing payload. If you want this commercialized, it needs lights, a radio, steering, a parachute, some level of engineering redundancy, etc.. It starts to quickly balloon the scope of the vessel and you now have something closer to a 747, but can only fit one person.
Latest Answers