“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
The Gossamer Albatross made it across the English Channel going less than 18 mph, so it’s definitely possible. Not exactly practical for commuting to work though 🙂
The ability to physically endure the falls that would no doubt happen at a high rate, killing off or severely injuring a large portion of people using them at some point in time. If you owned one it would be more a matter of when rather than if when it comes to a crash from altitude.
Fall protection above 6 feet in the work place exists for a reason to those exposed to even the slightest possibility of a fall.
It’s not safe. Basically the flimsy flying bike would crash you to the ground without any protection if you get leg cramps or if a strong wind blows by. Note the Japanese student flew over a paved road so it could land in an emergency; if a flying bike has to follow a road then you might as well ride a normal bike.
Even a very small motored plane is much more powerful and can add mass for a more protective structure and better capability to glide and land safely.
Your question makes no sense. What’s stopping people from doing the thing in the video you linked? Nothing, it’s in the video, people can do that.
There’s a million reasons why but all that really needs to be said is, “Have you seen how we drive?”
It would apear, nothing! From a practical perspective, I see two main issues, and one side issue though:
1. Windspeed. Any wind against your direction or to the side of it is against you, as you’ll have to correct it with some kind of force. That force comes right out of your forward momentum budget, along with the cost in energy you’re paying for lift!
2. Coordination! Imagine trying to keep a city of these very well-winged machines moving around without high-altitutde collisions! Even low altitude collisions would be 10ft in freedom units, and that’s enough to maim or kill a person, even in safety gear.
3. Take-off and landing areas – It’s rather large, innit?
All of these can be accounted for, so some do exist, but they aren’t adoptable on a wide scale.
Humans are too heavy relative to the power we produce.
A fit person can produce enough power in a short burst, by that it. That’s why your Japanese student didn’t fly more than a couple of hundred metres.
Need a wide margin of extra power in order to have a wide margin of safety.
It is especially not restricted by traffic control or landing area, you don’t need either of those for a super light aircraft.
There are paragliders right now that just use thermals in order to climb to altitude, not powered at all.
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.
Who is reaching 40-50 mph on a bike?
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