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[div style="font-weight: bold;" class="headline"]Aviation history is made by 'flapper'[/div][div class="subheadline"]'Perfect day,' says jubilant designer as ornithopter flight caps 30-year dream[/div][div class="pubdate"]Jul. 9, 2006. 07:19 AM[/div][div class="byline"]DEBRA BLACK[/div][div class="byline"]STAFF REPORTER[/div]
[!-- icx_story_begin --]For an aeronautical engineer it was the perfect day and a perfect end to a quest that has consumed his life for more than 30 years. Yesterday Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream, seeing his manned mechanical flapping-wing airplane, or ornithopter, fly — a dream first imagined by Leonardo da Vinci.
And with the successful flight DeLaurier has been lucky enough to touch what many describe as the Holy Grail of aeronautical design, achieving a place for himself, his team of volunteers and students in aviation history.
The flapper, as it's affectionately known, sustained flight over about a third of a kilometre for 14 seconds at about 10:20 a.m. before being hit by a crosswind and almost flipping over, damaging the nose and front wheel on the runway at Downsview Park. But the flight was long enough to prove DeLaurier's mechanical flapping-wing design for a manned, jet-boosted aircraft works.
The successful test flight was longer than the first powered flight by aviation pioneers the Wright brothers in December 1903 that lasted 12 seconds over a windswept beach in North Carolina. Beating that record was enough for DeLaurier.
"It is a perfect day," he said after the flight. "If I have the big one now, I'll die happy."
After four attempts at getting the ornithopter in the air, the fifth brought glory. The ornithopter, which looks like a cross between an old-fashioned plane and a Canada goose, took off and flew about two metres in the air. DeLaurier whooped and hollered from a truck by the side of the runway, watching it with complete wonder and joy.
"You did it man," he told pilot Jack Sanderson. "You've made an old professor really happy," DeLaurier said as he hugged him, choking back tears. "You've made aviation history." Then DeLaurier matter-of-factly walked down the runway to find a wing tip that broke off during the hard landing.
The team walked the ornithopter quietly down the runway to the hangar. Like many aeronautical engineers and scientists before him, DeLaurier has long puzzled over the idea of mechanical flapping-wing flight. Indeed, the search for a perfect flapping-wing airplane is, for aeronautical engineers, like mathematicians' quest to solve Fermat's Last Theorem — fuelled by an insatiable hunger for knowledge.
"I hadn't planned on this taking most of my career, but I don't regret it," said DeLaurier. "It has been exciting and interesting. Also it's been a worthy project, a worthy quest. You know that age-old saying: `What's the meaning of life?' Quite frankly, life has meaning if you measure yourself against a worthy goal. And for an aerospace engineer — who loves aviation history — this has been a worthy goal."
Humanity has always been fascinated by the idea of man flying like a bird. The Greeks told mythic tales about Daedalus and Icarus who fled the Labyrinth on wings of wax and feathers. Da Vinci was so fascinated with the idea he conceived an elaborate plan for an ornithopter — a design that, DeLaurier said, would never fly because the materials would be too heavy.
And so DeLaurier was moved to build what many have thought impossible — a manned engine-powered, flapping-wing airplane that would take off unaided. As a teenager DeLaurier was consumed with that dream, playing with rubber band-model ornithopters that he made out of balsa wood. But he didn't get serious about the quest until 1973 when he met Jeremy Harris, a principal researcher and colleague at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. The two became inseparable, working on the ornithopter.
"Jeremy is a mechanical engineer and he had the idea of a mechanism for flapping flight and started doing some calculations about it," said DeLaurier. "We became friends and he introduced me to the idea and I was able to provide the aerodynamic component. We became a team, working on this as a hobby. It was like two guys who get together to go bowling.
"We'd get together like two nerd engineers," explained DeLaurier. "This is what nerds do for fun. We figured with our Hewlett-Packard calculators and our engineering educations we'd be able to solve this problem pretty fast. We certainly got our comeuppance. It turned out to be a formidable problem to make a successful engine-powered ornithopter.
"Indeed, it wasn't until 1991 that the pair was able to successfully fly a remote-controlled ornithopter, which they called Mr. Bill. A successor to Mr. Bill currently is part of an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The pair then decided to go for the aviation brass ring and design a manned ornithopter able to take off by itself and use its wings to maintain flight. Harris eventually decided to withdraw from the project, leaving DeLaurier to pursue it at the U of T's Aerospace Institute.
With a team of volunteers and students and money from research grants, DeLaurier finally built his dream — a human-piloted ornithopter, 276 kilograms of Kevlar, aviation plywood, carbon fibre, spruce, aluminum, steel and duct tape. A 2.5-kilogram model jet engine provides 60 pounds of thrust.
Completed in 1996, it's housed in a hanger at Toronto's Aerospace Museum alongside a replica of the Avro Arrow jet fighter and an original Lancaster bomber from World War II.
The team has refined and tested the ornithopter ever since. For the past 10 years there have been glitches and malfunctions. Further complicating the project was a shoestring budget of about $250,000.
"I felt like Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians and not able to break free and make it happen," said DeLaurier who, before coming to the U of T, worked at both NASA and McDonnell Aircraft. "Per Lindstrand, a famous balloonist, once said it isn't aerodynamics that makes things fly, it is money. And with each passing year the truth of his comment becomes more evident."
But this year it was truly do or die. DeLaurier retired from the U of T in June. He will still maintain his lab and advise students, but his days of full-time teaching are over. The motorcycle-loving, straight-talking engineer, a kind of aviation cowboy, wanted to end his career on a high note — and what better way than flying his ornithopter.
"I would have felt like a coward if I had this chance to pursue it and I didn't," he said. But most importantly he had promised his wife, Susan, that in retirement he wouldn't build any aircraft bigger than his workbench.
This spring the 10-member team was on standby as an engine problem was sorted out. And then, suddenly, it was time to once more test the ornithopter. For the past week team members waited for an email saying the test flight would be the next morning. But the winds proved too strong. Then, finally, on Friday night, the weather for yesterday looked perfect. The final test was upon them.
Now that he has seen his dream come to fruition, he likely will repair the ornithopter and it will take a place of honour in the Aerospace Museum at Downsview Park. "We've learned a lot," he said about yesterday's test. The plane can clearly sustain flight, he said. The flapping wings work. But they weren't the right size for the ornithopter, he said. Bigger wings are needed if flight is to be sustained without a jet engine. And that, he said, costs more money — about another $100,000. Something a retiring professor simply doesn't have, he said. "Now if a sponsor came forward ... well, that would be another matter."
But for now it's likely the gauntlet may be passed to others. "If this is the end of it, I can retire happy." Back at the hangar, everyone posed for a team picture — flapping their arms like their beloved ornithopter. From there it was on to a team breakfast and perhaps a bottle or two of champagne. After that DeLaurier was headed for a nap and a long motorcycle ride.
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