Dutch engineer Jarno Smeets flaps his wings, takes flight

Dutch engineer Jarno Smeets appears to have accomplished what many of us only dream of: bird-like flight, complete with flapping wings.

On March 18th, at a park in The Hague, Smeets flew like his muse, the albatross, thanks to Wii controllers, an Android phone and his 37-ounce custom-built fabric wings.

"I have always dreamed about this. But after 8 months of hard work, research and testing, it all paid off," Smeets wrote in the YouTube description.

Wired Science reports that upon completing his monumental 60-second flight, Smeets 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 [bleep] magical moment. The best feeling I have felt in my life."

How does it work?

"Until now people had assumed that it was impossible to fly with bird-like wings using human muscle power. Smeets designed his own system to solve this problem, using two Wii controllers, the accelerometers from a HTC Wildfire S smartphone and Turnigy motors. This combined mechanism provided Smeets with extra power to move his 17m2 wings and allowed him to move his arms freely without any risk of breaking them. The system is a wireless (haptic) concept. The wing itself was built out of a kite and carbon windsurf masts (as flightpins)," details the press release.

See a close-up of the custom wings — and a video on the science behind the flapping wings — at Smeet's site, Human Birdwings.

Some claim it's fake. Others refuse to believe it's anything less than awesome. What do you think?

Update: The filmmaker has admitted to faking the video, according to the BBC.