How Many Birds Would It Take To Make You Fly

Now supposing you aren't the average American:

You most likely weigh somewhere around 70 to 90kg. Which is 154 - 200lbs for you American readers. 

F is force

m is mass

g is gravity- which in this context is on earth at 9.8 m/s 

 

F =  70 * 9.8

F = 686 Newtons required to lift someone 70kg

F = 90 * 9.8 = 882 Newtons required to lift someone of 90kg 

 

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On earth 1 kg mass can be lifted by approximately 9.81 Newtons. We can prove this by: 686/9.81 = 69.92.

This means that for you American viewers:

 If a 15 kg (because everything is heavier in America 😂) Andean Condor were to lift you up:

Each 15kg Andean Condor can exert 147 Newtons of predicted lifting power.

 

686/147 = 4.67 Andean Condors. Fortunately, animal laws in America most likely prevent us from cutting these animals in half. So we will round up to the closest whole number, 5.

 

However, this math is actually wrong. 

This is because an Andean Condor can exert 147 Newtons of lifting power to lift itself, with a maximum of 200 Newtons. This leaves 53 Newtons in reserve. Unfortunately, for our experiment this is pathetic lifting power because these birds would very quickly exhaust themselves and fall to the ground.

 

This means that the only way that this math would work out is if the Andean Condors were scavenging on the body of a former pro bodybuilder and grew beyond jacked. Since that sounds like an ethical nightmare, lets try the next idea.

 

We can use 558 racing pigeons to lift a 70kg person:

 

Weight of a pigeon: 4.9 Newtons.

Available payload (what we were missing before): ~1.23 Newtons of useful lift for each bird.

 

We know that we need 686 N to lift a 70 kg person, so:

 

686 N / 1.23 N per pigeon = 558 pigeons (approx)

 

This sounds like a logistical nightmare- unless you live in New York. 

 

This is still impossible with these measurements because we haven't accounted for the weight of the harnesses which adds an extra 12kg. 

 

60N + 38N = 98N

785N / 1.23 N per pigeon = 638.21 pigeons approximately

 

763 Newtons if we were to apply upgrades and add a parachute. 620.33 pigeons are now needed. 

 

 

Kidnapping 700 feral pigeons (roughly 50 extra as backup) would not have an impact on New York's feral pigeon population of 1,000,000!

 

New Yorker's clearly have an unfair advantage in this experiment, and personally I don't live in New York.

 

If you know someone that does, send me a message.

 

Bye for today! 

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