Fly like a pelican

[gerasvela]

I've been watching a lot of pelicans fly lately and I observe how they barely flap their wings as opposed to other birds flying around the area. Then, between beers, I thought of some kind of helium suit with flexiible wings. The wings, just like birds, would be made of a hollow ultra light metal skeleton. The suit itself would also have various compartments pumped with helium, kind of like how soldiers have pockets all over to distribute the weight. Does anyone think that with something of this type and jumping off a plain it would be possible to just fly around and chillax kind of how pelicans do.

Edited October 27, 2011 by gerasvela

[imatfaal]

you ever watched the oh so graceful swans and pelicans try to take off?

 

I spent an hour a few week ago watching a parascender slowly working his way up Skidaw in the English Lake District. Graceful, beautiful and as chillaxed as you could imagine - but the taking off and landing bit is just ugly

[gerasvela]

you ever watched the oh so graceful swans and pelicans try to take off?

 

but the taking off and landing bit is just ugly

 

I've watched the pelicans land, and with wings that you can actually flex, as opposed to a still paraglider, I think eventually it would be possible to land gracefully. And you could take off from an airplane flying relatively low, just like skydivers do, except you wouldnt deploy your parachute unless your wings don't work (... oh shit!).

 

What do you say? You want to give it a test drive?

[Moontanman]

I think it should be noted here that birds, flying birds, are indeed puffed up and much lighter than they appear. Besides having hollow bones their feathers make them look big and do cause the over all bird to be much less dense than it would be if the whole bird was as dense as it would be if it was "that" size and not covered with feathers. Feathers are a lot like being puffed up by air, the surface of the feathers makes the entire bird a lifting body almost as though it was full of air. I wouldn't be surprised if a birds feathered surface area was more than twice it's surface area without feathers but only at a cost of a small percentage of weight.