Draconology

Draconology - a study of dragon technology.

View project on GitHub

Dragon Wingsuite

By Ariane, Grade 1

“I don’t know, if a 5 m² or 10 m² wing is big enough for me to fly.”

I ran this experiment to find out If I can put together a Dragon Wingsuite and fly in it.


📋 Materials

  • Wingfoil Wing 5 m²
  • Wingfoil Wing 9.2 m²
  • Pilot, 22 kg, can run at 4 m/s, no prior flight experience
  • Climbing Harness
  • Climbing Carabiner
  • Shoes

🔬 Procedure

  1. Calculate the wing size and flying speed
  2. Go to a grassy soccer field, no wind, no people around
  3. Rig the 5 m² wing, put on the harness, try to run and glide
  4. Rig the 9.2 m² wing, put on the harness, try to run and glide

📊 Results

After completing the steps above, here’s what happened:

  • Observation 1: I could only do a small jump and couldn’t glide with 5 m² wing.
  • Observation 2: 9.2 m² wing is heavy, I could run, but couldn’t jump.
  • Observation 3: 9.2 m² wing pulls up only a little bit.

Conclusion:
A 9.2 m² is not big enough and it is heavy. Maybe a 20 m² wing?

Poster

Setup - Figure 1
Figure 1: Initial setup

Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 2-6: Calculations

Two Wings - Figure 7
Two Wings - Figure 8
Figure 7-8: Conclusion

📎 Supplementary Materials

Watch a video demonstration of my experiment on YouTube:
▶ Watch on YouTube