“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
In addition to what other people said, they took an extremely aerodynamic position (akin to a recumbent bike) that is much more aerodynamic than the traditional bike. In fact, mediocre level recumbent pro bikers can beat traditional top pros on a flat surface because of this and was a reason why the bike form was denied entry into traditional racing about 100 years ago.
Point being, just to get this thing to fly everything had to be outmaxxed just like that from the humongous wingspan, to the riding angle, to the materials, and mostly likely a fit and trained individual just to achieve this and he certainly didn’t do it for much longer.
Just look up human powered flight. They had copters (quad or heli, I don’t remember), different planes, etcetera but it always had these wingspan, materials, and aerodynamics in one way or another built in.
Personally, I think if a personal flying vehicle ever really gets built on a big commercial scale (not human powered), barring an anti-gravity discovery, it would probably be some type of gyrocopter / autogyro type thing (with AI flying it).
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