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...
This peculiar vision has captivated aeronauts longer than any other. Fixed wing aircraft were always seen as somehow "cheating". |