Something like this happened in BC not too long ago. Unfortunately the outcome wasn't the same.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-hang-glider-pilot-pleads-guilty-in-womans-death/article16749684/

That last point threw me off. Hang gliders.. used to attach on to enemies being thrown off a cliff?!! Doesn't that defeat the purpose of throwing them off in the first place? Unless they were flammable maybe? Then that would make sense, because throwing an enemy off a cliff wouldn't offer -as- much 'entertainment' value?

Maximum glide ratio 10:1 in that aircraft (Jabiru J170 ultralight) only weighs 705lbs empty. Pretty safe plane to lose power in I'm guessing, better so than a small tear in your hang glider??

* wings?

Looks fake to me, for a few reasons. The wings and the flapping mechanism don't seem to be strong enough to support his weight and the wings never show the load of his weight underneath them once he's up in the air. He also lifts his legs after he takes off and keeps them behind him, but has no support underneath like you would in a hang glider. It also seems a bit suspicious that he doesn't turn his head at all from the helmet cam view where you could easily see the wings flapping from his POV. It's all very hinky.

Flying devil rays? Quite cool. *Timeshifted flying with pelicans? WAY cool.

I need to seek out this Earth Flight programme. According to the BBC website:

Spycams film right in the heart of the flock with microlights, hang-gliders and wirecams making up the aerial filming arsenal.

"...Detailed instructions for making origami hang gliders, you can surf on waves of air".

...and looking like a retard.

This was posted 2 days ago (http://videosift.com/video/Surf-an-Origami-Hang-Glider-on-a-Wave-of-Air) but seems to have been killed.

That's a pretty cool airplane, it'd be neat if I had the patience to put one together.

Man, Japan really can out crazy any other nation in the world without even trying.

The U.S. trying to make crazy shit like this is sort of like man trying to fly like the birds.. best we can do is a hang glider or airplane, which works, but it's nothing like what comes naturally to a bird.

Japan is crazy like a bird.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'gliders, gliding, sailplanes, soaring, fun, not hang gliders' to 'gliders, gliding, sailplanes, soaring, fun, not hang gliders, no sound' - edited by kulpims

^ I guess it is possible. It is confirmed that oxygen concentrations have varied, and were higher in the past, this might have given the animal better performance.
However I think the theory of the bird lifting off like a hang glider quite plausible and elegant. If you see the ease at which hang gliders can take off on the right slope and thermal, it's not that hard to imagine an evolved animal being far superior in take off from slopes.

In reply to this comment by cybrbeast:
On a related note, the biggest bird that ever flew was Argentavis magnificens, an ancestor of the Giant Condor. Impressive picture of replica here.

^Holy Crap!

...It would have been impossible to take off from a standing start. The bird probably used some of the same techniques used by modern-day hang-glider pilots such as running on sloping ground to get thrust or energy, or running with a headwind.

Is it possible that the atmosphere was more dense six million years ago?

Here's an illustration of Argentavis magnificens .

http://img.sci-lib.com/2009/06/19/b_278_1.jpg

On a related note, the biggest bird that ever flew was Argentavis magnificens, an ancestor of the Giant Condor. Impressive picture of replica here.

>> Discovered decades ago and formally described in 1980, Argentavis magnificens is the largest bird known. It lived six million years ago during the Miocene period throughout Argentina. It is nearly the size of a Cessna 152 light aircraft, with a 23-foot (7-meter) wing span and weighing approximately 150-pounds (70-kilograms).

It would have been impossible to take off from a standing start. The bird probably used some of the same techniques used by modern-day hang-glider pilots such as running on sloping ground to get thrust or energy, or running with a headwind.
But once it was on a thermal, it could easily rise up a mile or two without any flapping of its wings -- a free ride, just circling. Then at the top, the bird could simply glide to the next thermal and in this way it could certainly travel 200 miles a day -ScienceBlogs excerpts

edit: And the biggest creature that ever flew was a Quetzalcoatlus.

>>A pterodactyloid pterosaur. More recent estimates based on greater knowledge of azhdarchid proportions place its wingspan at 10-11 meters (33-36 ft). However, similar claims to an upper size limit for flight accompanied the discovery of large (up to 9 m (30 ft)) Pteranodon, and azhdarchids larger than Quetzalcoatlus with wingspans 12 meters or more (such as Hatzegopteryx) have been discovered.
A 2002 study suggested a body mass of 90–120 kilograms (200–260 lb) for Quetzalcoatlus, considerably lower than most other recent estimates.[7] Higher estimates tend toward 200–250 kilograms (440–550 lb). -wiki excerpts

>> ^obscenesimian
Atomic weight (200.59) should be sufficient to tell you that the density of mercury vapor is much greater than that of nitrogen and oxygen, the largest components of air. If the vapors in the video http://www.videograter.com/video/Mercury-vapor-from-dental-fillings were mercury, the vapors should be falling not rising.
Do you need more details?


^Obscenesimian, You're absolutely right.

The air at surface of the Earth is always the coldest, because warm air rises and cold air falls, so no warmth would ever stay close to ground where people live. These currents of air are NEVER able to push or pull ANYTHING along with them, not newspapers, kites, hang-gliders, and ESPECIALLY not other diffused particulate matter, such as vapors or fumes. Wind is just your imagination playing tricks on you half the time, and the other half it is Angels playing tricks on you. Toxic vapors and fumes are never a problem for us humans because the molecules that make up paint, gasoline and ESPECIALLY mercury are ALL heavier then nitrogen, oxygen and all the rest the components of the atmosphere which are always arranged in layers from heaviest to lightest particles and never mix. This is why smoke and ash always fall away from combustion sources and never rises. It is simply not plausible why these different particles would ever WANT to mix, and so they NEVER do. DIFFUSION is a myth created by Adolf Fick in 1855 to confuse good Christians into believing his friend, Charles Darwin's hoax of evolution, published four years later.

Do you need more details?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'gliders, sailplanes, soaring, fun' to 'gliders, gliding, sailplanes, soaring, fun, not hang gliders' - edited by calvados

>> ^boisetech:
Gyrocopter

You are correct. I suspected it when I saw how the stick was shaking and then I saw a picture posted above. I still can't see the whole aircraft. This really needs a back story and more pictures.
Edit: The pictures I saw are of a delta wing hang-glider style craft. It is completely different. No reason not to think it is a gyro-copter, though.