Flight of the Ornithopter

A team lead by Dr. James DeLaurier, a University of Toronto engineering professor who has been working on the problem of human flight via mechanically flapping wings for 30 years, has finally done what seemed, even to other engineers, to be impossible. They have flown an ornithopter. The altitude was only two meters, the distance only about a third of a kilometer, but the darn thing flew.

COMMENT: The immediate practical applications of this thing may be zero, but DeLaurier has done a great service to everyone who still believes that, with enough effort and brains, the human race can do just about anything.