The Man Who Flies Like a Bird

Using videogame controllers, an Android phone and custom-built wings, a Dutch engineer named Jarno Smeets has achieved birdlike flight.

Smeets flew like an albatross, the bird that inspired his winged-man invention, on March 18 at a park in The Hague.

“I have always dreamed about this. But after 8 months of hard work, research and testing it all payed off,” Smeets said on his YouTube page.

Smeets got the idea from sketches of a futuristic flying bicycle drawn by his grandfather, who spent much of his life designing the contraption but never actually built it.

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The Flying Car

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The world’s first flying car will be available to consumers by 2011, the Associated Press reports.

Terrafugia Inc., an American company based in Massachusetts, plans to produce the vehicle called “The Transition” and deliver it by the end of next year.

It will take about one minute for the car-plane’s wings to unfold for flying and fold up for driving. Drivers do not need to leave the car during the process. When the vehicle’s two wings are unfolded, it can be parked in an ordinary garage at home.

When the vehicle is in “car mode,” it will be able to reach a high speed of 145 kilometers per hour. In “flight mode,” it will be able to reach a high speed of 185 kilometers per hour. With a full fuel tank, the vehicle will be able to fly as far as 805 kilometers.

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