It turns out the video was a fake.
Jarno Smeets, a Dutch Engineer who had a dream to fly, put his creativity and intelligence to work by creating fully functional bird-like wings allowing the possibility of human flight. He used videogame controllers an Android phone and custom-made wings he created himself.
On March 18 at a park in Hague, Smeets lived his dream and flew like an albatross. The albatross was the bird he used for inspiration in creating his bird-wing invention. On his Youtube channel Smeets says, “I have always dreamed about this. But after 8 months of hard work, research and testing it all payed off.” Smeets further explains where he got his amazing idea. He says that he remembers his grandfather's sketches of a flying bicycle, of which he had spent much of his life designing and had intended to build it but, regretfully never completed the project.
Inspired by his grandfather's mechanical dream, Smeets enrolled at the Coventry University in Englands' school for engineering and regretfully found out the flying bicycle design could not physically work despite his grandfather's ambitious mind. Later, Smeets begins to look for other works of inspiration. He soon looks to Leonardo Da Vinci's wing drawings as an inspirational source for his flying machine. Smeets then later pairs up with Bert Otten, a neuromechanics expert who helps bring his dream to reality.
Bert Otten helps develop the robotic prosthetics used to mechanically flap the wings in relation to the movement of Smeets' human arms. Basically the design causes the wings to become more like a fluid extension of our own arms allowing a human to have the ability to efficiently flap giant wings. Furthermore, the 37-ounce wings made of fabric are designed in proportion to the human body which helps in weight distributiion and helps to allow the possibility of lift.
On his blog Smeets writes, “Working with the fabric was difficult because it was very fragile, It’s important to sew the seams carefully, and give the wing shape extra strength without making it too heavy. The top part of the kite will be folded around the ribs to create an aerodynamic shape. For extra lift and control I’ll stretch a piece of kite fabric between the legs, as some sort of tail wing.”
Smeet calculated that he needed to generate about 2,000 Watts of continuous power in order to carry his 180 lb. body and 40 lb. wing pack. Unfortunately humans aren't designed to be able to creat that much power continuously, but with the use of motors, his upper body arms and pecs allowed him to guide the device and flap his wings.
The intelligent flying device was created out of salvaged everyday electronics which any hacker would appreciate. He used Wii controllers, accellerometers pulled from an HTC Wildfire Android phone and Turnigy motors.
After his glorious flight and after landing the sacred contraption Smeet said, “At one moment you see the ground moving away, and then suddenly you’re free, a really intense feeling of freedom. The true feeling of flying. A f*ckin' magical moment. The best feeling I have felt in my life.”
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