Flying bicycle

Jay Dolan

New member
This is my first post, but I've been watching your show for a couple years now. Absolutely love it, takes me back to being a kid.

And that got me thinking.. when I was a kid, I dreamed about putting wings on my Huffy, building a ramp, and bombing down a hill before jumping my sweet ride into the air. Of course, I never tried it. But you guys have made crazier things fly..

So what do you think of making a full-size bicycle take to the skies?
 

joelspangler

Active member
it would already have some serious "landing gear", but ballance might be an issue. I like the idea. I wonder if something could be done with the front axle to make the plane steer... I've never seen a rudder in the front before.
 

Dante

Active member
it would already have some serious "landing gear", but ballance might be an issue. I like the idea. I wonder if something could be done with the front axle to make the plane steer... I've never seen a rudder in the front before.
I think they ran into this problem with the backwards plane episode. Any vertical surface forward of the CG will cause the yaw axis to become very unsteady and spin around, so a front rudder wouldn't work, but the landing gear would be cool!
 

joelspangler

Active member
I guess they could turn the front wheel with a servo, but do the actual steering with differential thrust... they like differential thrust.
 

Jay Dolan

New member
Haha! I love the idea of making it look like the scene from ET. I remember first seeing that movie when I was 4 years old, and being so scared of it. When ET got sick and the men in radiation suits showed up, I bolted out of our livingroom :LOL:

I know it's been done using rotary wings before.. but a fix winged version is what my childhood mind always imagined :)