How to make a rubber band powered plane (ornithopter)

An ornithopter is a rubber band powered plane that flaps its wings. Leonardo da Vinci drew pictures of ornithopters in his famous sketchbooks, and several early-20th-century attempts at powered flight were ornithopter variants. Some ornithopters were propelled with oars; others used the arms and legs of the occupants for power. Some ornithopters were to be used with the aid of an inflated balloon.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORNITHOPTERS
The ancient Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus tells the tale of how Daedalus made wings of wax and feathers so that he and his son Icarus could escape from captivity. But Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted, while Daedelus flew too low and crashed into the rocks. Both died in their attempts to fly. Another early story tells of King Bladud, who ruled in Britain in the 9th century BC Bladud supposedly constructed a pair of wings with which he proposed to fly. But, according to the monk Geoffrey of Monmouth in a history of the British kings, Bladud was dashed to pieces as he landed on top of the Temple of Apollo in the town of Trinovantum. Earlier, in 1010, a monk in Malmsesbury, England, attached artificial wings to his body and jumped from the top of his abbey to glide to only two broken legs upon landing. Other tower jumpers suffered death or injuries, while a few achieved some partial success with their glides. Later, Leonardo da Vinci, realized that human powered ones wouldn't be able to fly and drew sketches of some ornithopters of his own. Around 400 years later, the French inventor Gustave Trouvé designed an ornithopter that was powered by an internal combustion engine. This led people to make what is now the rubber band powered ornithopter which I now give to you.

Step 1 The plans

Since the best way that I can descibe how to build one is to present you with the plans. This is the plans for the 'Freebird'. You can cover the wings with plastic ceran wrap that is used for covering bowls. You probably won't be able to see the image so here's the web address:
http://www.ornithopter.org/plans/freebirdplan.jpg

Comments

[Instructable04]

I never knew that these ever exsisted! Awesome stuff fireblast ;)

[odellcowgirl]

ornithopters dont have to be rubber band powered

[Gunnar120]

404 Not found

[walterh9]

http://www.ornithopter.org/birdflight/freebird.pdf here is the pdf file

[c16mroop]

how can i find some rubber band air plane building sites

[dizzle976]

www.theplanpage.com for free plans from the 30s and 40s

[fireblast_1212]

You might want to just try looking up ornithopter on google!

[77Kapn Krunch77]

I wanna see this in action you should post a video

[Emsaid]

Hey I've seen this before, this is a copy!

[dragonwarrior3000]

i didn't even try with this one

[fireblast_1212]

What does flagged mean?

[valhallas_end]

Finfan7 probably flagged it because of the lack of credit and instructions: are you the creator of these plans or an administrator at ornithopter.org? If not, then you need to properly credit the creator or be labeled guilty of plagiarism or stealing. If yes, then he could have flagged this as an 'incomplete' instructable by the lack of actual directions. Hope that helps.

[zzoe]

I'm baffled as well. Options for flagging seem to be: 1) 'Not nice' 2) 'inappropriate' 3) 'Spam' This doesn't seem to meat any of the criteria. I liked it VERY much, myself

[valhallas_end]

Flagging an instructable has the options of "Inappropriate", "Incomplete", or "Spam" (click the flag button near the top of the instructions to see the options there). I'm betting Finfan7 thought this incomplete, or inappropriate due to lack of credit.

[purplepeopleeater]

But this is from some where else, I've seen it before

[weird40]

Why would anyone flag this? This is a GREAT instructable!

[zzoe]

YES!

[finfan7]

Awesome but flagged.

[zzoe]

I agree with wierd40 , and i ask - Why did you bother to flag this. As i said above, it doesn't seem to meet any of the criteria for flagging.

[weird40]

Flagged means you don't like it, so why did you flag it if it's awesome?

[xxgearzofgrindxx]

It was flagged, because it may be plagiarism. Which, by the way, is illegal. I am not sure if this actually is plagiarism, but my guess would be he did not make the instructions for this.

[fireblast_1212]

Thanks you!

[weirdo84]

This is awesome! I have always loved flying things and I think ornithopters are in it's own class because they can flap their wings and have a propeller at the same time with the same rubber band.