Bird-plane a flying first A University of Toronto grad student
has built and piloted a human-powered flapping-wing airplane,
making aviation history. Leonardo da Vinci, of Florence, dreamt
of doing it. Todd Reichert, of the University of Toronto,
actually did. On Wednesday, Reichert, a PhD student at the U of
T Institute for Aerospace Studies, announced he had completed
the first continuous flight of a human-powered aircraft with
birdlike flapping wings, a device known as an ornithopter. The
creation of a craft that would allow humans to fly like birds
has captured the imagination of inventors for centuries, but few
working models have been built. Da Vinci drew up sketches for a
flying machine in 1485, but never made one. “Some people just
dream about flying, at night in their dreams. I do,” said David
Greatrix, a professor of aerospace engineering at Ryerson
University. “Even though we have flying airplanes, it’s not the
same.” Reichert’s ornithopter flight, which lasted 19.3 seconds
and covered 145 metres,