UIUC Applied Aerodynamics Group: Misc

Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801

Last update 3/24/95

Dr. James DeLaurier's and Jeremy Harris' Ornithopter Design

A few years ago I was contacted by Dr. James DeLaurier from the University of Toronto. Dr. DeLaurier had been working on the design of an ornithopter (an airplane that flaps its wings to fly) with Jeremy Harris for over 20 years. Although the stability and control problems were worked out, they had difficulty sustaining flight. The main airfoil was not efficient enough to keep the plane aloft. I was asked to design a new airfoil (S1020 coordinates) for the wing, and on Sept 4, 1991, "Mr. Bill" flew with the new airfoil and was able to finally sustain flight...after 20 years of development. Footage of the event aired on CNN Science and Technology Week in the Fall of 1991, and it also appeared in several magazines.

Mpeg movies of the record flight can be seen here:

Warming up 1665 kbytes

Launching 2208 kbytes

Landing 3423 kbytes

Thanks go to Jim Sonnenmeier for converting the video footage to Mpeg format.

The latest from Prof DeLaurier: Full Scale Flapper!

From Nathan Chronister
Another http://indev.hypermart.net/

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