Human-powered flight in low gravity?

[Mgellis]

Various people have said it would be possible for people to fly with strapped-on wings if they were in a low gravity environment like the Moon (and assuming the air pressure was about the same as on Earth).

Okay, I'm certainly willing to believe that, but I want to know how this would work.

Is it simply a matter that people could produce enough thrust with the wings to lift themselves into the air once they reached a certain low weight?  (For the sake of argument, let us assume a 4-meter wingspan and about 4 square meters of wing surface.)  I'm not sure I could flap my arms fast enough to lift myself off the ground even if I did only weigh 30 lbs.  I know some birds can do that, but their bodies (musculature, etc.) are optimized for flight.  Would a person be able to just slip on a pair of wings in 1/6th gravity, flap away, and rise into the air?  Would they be able to do it on a moon with lower gravity, like Triton, where I believe the gravity is only 1/12th Earth normal?

Anyone have any ideas what the math says about this--how much thrust can a person actually produce by flapping their arms and how much lift would you get if you had some wings strapped on?

I suspect mechanical wings, with their own motors, and some kind of battery would be more feasible.  The wings could then flap independent of how much strength a person had in their arms (this way, they also would not get tired), although I'm not sure how long the battery would last.  I suppose if it's anything like my electric leaf blower, 30 minutes or an hour.  And probably longer since we're assuming this would be in the future when we have colonies on the moon and battery technology should get at least a little better than what it is now.   

Any thoughts on all this?

 

 

[Halc]

8 hours ago, Mgellis said:

Is it simply a matter that people could produce enough thrust with the wings to lift themselves into the air once they reached a certain low weight? 

People can produce enough thrust to fly here on Earth, but it takes an athlete. Don't know the current record, but somebody flew over the English channel with human-powered flight. So sure, if you can do it at 1g, you can do it at lower g with less effort.

I think your mistake is presuming it is just a matter of strapping on winds and arm-flapping. But our arms are situated nowhere near our center of gravity, so instead of flying horizontally like the pictures depict, you'd hang vertically if all your weight was born by your arms.  I suppose it could work, but the aerodynamics would be horrible. All gliding done by humans is a different setup designed to support you everywhere, hence the funny flying-squirrel setup that the base jumpers use.  I suppose that one could generate thrust by a more 'flappable' version of one of those.

8 hours ago, Mgellis said:

I suspect mechanical wings, with their own motors,

That (gasoline, electric, etc) would be powered flight. We also have that here on Earth, so again, doing it at low g would be easier.

You can also strap on a rocket, something else a human can do here on Earth.

 

What if the pressure was much higher?  How much easier/harder would it be to fly at say 1g or less with thicker air. It has more mass to support you, but more drag as well. If it's dense enough, the buoyancy alone would be enough.

[mistermack]

Well firstly, it's highly unlikely that a low gravity world could retain an atmosphere as thick as that on Earth, with the same pressure, so it's just an academic question. 

Yes, you could fly with flapping flight in this theoretical situation. But it would be pretty clumsy and pointless. Flapping flight is highly evolved, and the human body is nothing like what's ideal. But, if you were much lighter, then you could wear wings that were much bigger than a man could handle here on Earth, because the wings would be lighter too. So gliding would be much easier, and a bit of flapping would propel you along in some fashion. 

[Sensei]

10 hours ago, Mgellis said:

Any thoughts on all this?

People fly because of their brain size, capacity and power, not because of their muscles..

ps. Muscles bigger than the brain are only needed by MMA fighters, boxers, etc.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Sensei

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Halc said:

People can produce enough thrust to fly here on Earth, but it takes an athlete. Don't know the current record, but somebody flew over the English channel with human-powered flight. So sure, if you can do it at 1g, you can do it at lower g with less effort.

The Gossamer Albatross, winning one of the Kremer prize competitions. But that wasn’t by flapping wings, as described in the OP.