​Bizarre Volerian aircraft design replaces jets and props with flapping wings
https://newatlas.com/volerian-flapping-flying-car/56886/

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature. When evolution has found an advantage to producing thrust in a fluid, it has done it mainly by flapping things back and forth. This new VTOL aircraft propulsion system aims to do the same with a series of flapping wings mounted in large ducts.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

​Bizarre Volerian aircraft design replaces jets and props with flapping wings
https://newatlas.com/volerian-flapping-flying-car/56886/

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature. When evolution has found an advantage to producing thrust in a fluid, it has done it mainly by flapping things back and forth. This new VTOL aircraft propulsion system aims to do the same with a series of flapping wings mounted in large ducts.

more…

Flagellum seems to closest to propellers

>The company, at this stage, has only shown a bunch of renders

Wow, let’s all all crowd around and fund them.

Bubblecar said:

>The company, at this stage, has only shown a bunch of renders

Wow, let’s all all crowd around and fund them.

Some sort of crowd funding you think

Bubblecar said:

>The company, at this stage, has only shown a bunch of renders

Wow, let’s all all crowd around and fund them.

Can I name one of them Rudolph?

Tau.Neutrino said:

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature.

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Spiny Norman said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature.

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

Any in any case, flapping wings are a lot less efficient than conventional props & fixed wings.

Cymek said:

Spiny Norman said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature.

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

It’s had either 14 billion or 4.5 billion years, depending on how you view it, to come up with it. AFAIK, nothing even close yet.

This flapping wing design looked like a dragonfly. Riout 102T Alérion Ornithopter of 1937. The wings collapsed in wind tunnel tests and it was abandoned.

Tau.Neutrino said:

​Bizarre Volerian aircraft design replaces jets and props with flapping wings
https://newatlas.com/volerian-flapping-flying-car/56886/

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature. When evolution has found an advantage to producing thrust in a fluid, it has done it mainly by flapping things back and forth. This new VTOL aircraft propulsion system aims to do the same with a series of flapping wings mounted in large ducts.

more…

Nature did invent a form of jet propulsion in the octopus.

Spiny Norman said:

Cymek said:

Spiny Norman said:

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

It’s had either 14 billion or 4.5 billion years, depending on how you view it, to come up with it. AFAIK, nothing even close yet.

It has done an axle sort of, not on the scale you’re thinking, the sodium potassium ATPase pump has an ‘axle’ as such

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2PdDLJWiMY

Cymek said:

Spiny Norman said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

There are no powered spinning propellers in nature.

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

I don’t think so. Living cells need to be supplied with nutrients and fluids and that sort of thing. So they need to be all kind of interconnected to allow that to happen. For nature to evolve a wheel or axle or some other free spinning system it would be essentially two different animals. I’m nt sure how that would work.

• I don’t think so. Living cells need to be supplied with nutrients and fluids and that sort of thing. So they need to be all kind of interconnected to allow that to happen. For nature to evolve a wheel or axle or some other free spinning system it would be essentially two different animals. I’m nt sure how that would work.

Unless their whole body was a wheel, then they wouldn’t need an axle…

furious said:

• I don’t think so. Living cells need to be supplied with nutrients and fluids and that sort of thing. So they need to be all kind of interconnected to allow that to happen. For nature to evolve a wheel or axle or some other free spinning system it would be essentially two different animals. I’m nt sure how that would work.

Unless their whole body was a wheel, then they wouldn’t need an axle…

So hoop snakes then?

poikilotherm said:

Spiny Norman said:

Cymek said:

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

It’s had either 14 billion or 4.5 billion years, depending on how you view it, to come up with it. AFAIK, nothing even close yet.

It has done an axle sort of, not on the scale you’re thinking, the sodium potassium ATPase pump has an ‘axle’ as such

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2PdDLJWiMY

axleotl

ChrispenEvan said:

poikilotherm said:

Spiny Norman said:

It’s had either 14 billion or 4.5 billion years, depending on how you view it, to come up with it. AFAIK, nothing even close yet.

It has done an axle sort of, not on the scale you’re thinking, the sodium potassium ATPase pump has an ‘axle’ as such

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2PdDLJWiMY

axleotl

Dr Axelrod

poikilotherm said:

ChrispenEvan said:

poikilotherm said:

It has done an axle sort of, not on the scale you’re thinking, the sodium potassium ATPase pump has an ‘axle’ as such

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2PdDLJWiMY

axleotl

Dr Axelrod

Axel Rose

Tamb said:

poikilotherm said:

ChrispenEvan said:

axleotl

Dr Axelrod

Axel Rose

Axel Foley…

Tamb said:

poikilotherm said:

ChrispenEvan said:

axleotl

Dr Axelrod

Axel Rose

The bandana is hiding the fact they have the same hair style

Bubblecar said:

This flapping wing design looked like a dragonfly. Riout 102T Alérion Ornithopter of 1937. The wings collapsed in wind tunnel tests and it was abandoned.

I wonder if helicopter blade style wings would have worked?

Were they flexible enough?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Bubblecar said:

This flapping wing design looked like a dragonfly. Riout 102T Alérion Ornithopter of 1937. The wings collapsed in wind tunnel tests and it was abandoned.

I wonder if helicopter blade style wings would have worked?

Were they flexible enough?

There’s an article about it here

Here it is before the wings and tail received their fabric covering.

The fuselage still survives, but the aluminium wing supports may not be the original ones.

I went to an aerodynamics conference in Melbourne (i actually sneaked in without paying but don’t tell anyone).

The most memorable talk was by someone who had build a four wing flapping wing dragonfly robot.

I was able to help aftervthe conference by emailing him my earlier four wing flapping wing design.

At the end of my design study i had concluded that it had a chance of working but was inferior in terms of power requirements to a helicopter.

party_pants said:

Cymek said:

Spiny Norman said:

I don’t know of anything in nature that’s yet evolved something like a ball bearing.

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

I don’t think so. Living cells need to be supplied with nutrients and fluids and that sort of thing. So they need to be all kind of interconnected to allow that to happen. For nature to evolve a wheel or axle or some other free spinning system it would be essentially two different animals. I’m nt sure how that would work.

It would work by programmed cell death.

It grows as a hollow tube nourished from both outside and inside, and then those cells in the tube that are furthest from nutrients (in the middle of the tube wall) are programmed to die off. That gives a pair of tubes one inside the other that can be linked up to other parts to form a perfect journal bearing.

mollwollfumble said:

party_pants said:

Cymek said:

Could nature evolve the above, or a wheel on an axle

I don’t think so. Living cells need to be supplied with nutrients and fluids and that sort of thing. So they need to be all kind of interconnected to allow that to happen. For nature to evolve a wheel or axle or some other free spinning system it would be essentially two different animals. I’m nt sure how that would work.

It would work by programmed cell death.

It grows as a hollow tube nourished from both outside and inside, and then those cells in the tube that are furthest from nutrients (in the middle of the tube wall) are programmed to die off. That gives a pair of tubes one inside the other that can be linked up to other parts to form a perfect journal bearing.

Also useful as a living hydraulic cylinder, which could act as a perfect replacement for our familiar jointed leg.