FLAPPING WINGS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20106, 27 March 1928, Page 8

FLAPPING WINGS

WITHOUT ENGINES A FLYING POSSIBILITY. The possibilities of flying by means of flapping wings without the aid of any mechanical power, wore demonstrated recently by Captain Victor Dibovsky, formerly chief of the Imperial Russian Nav:bl Aviation mission to the Allies, in a lecture to the Society of Afodel Aeronautical Engineers in London. With models the lecturer illustrated his claim to have solved the apparently insurmountable difficulty. Having shown how the -weight of the man and the machine, which he estimated at 1501 b. each, would force the wings upward, Captain Dibovsky set about counteracting that, by interconnecting the wings with what he described as “additional muscles” and which were represented in the model by clastic. These had the effect of keeping the wings horizontal oven when the weight was attached. “Thus,” he said, “I have neutralised with these additional Uiuscles the power of lift on the wings from the air pressure, and this principle makes it possible to flap the wings without any extraordinary power. To flap gently, said Captain Dibovsky, would only require 201 b to 251 b. on each foot. His study of birds had shown him that birds flew better in the sunshine. This was because, when the sunrays struck the upper part of the wings, they warmed them, and the density of the air above became less; while the shadow of the wings created a motion of the air beneath and gave a better lifting power.