The Tech Behind Flying People

In the last couple of weeks, New Yorkers may have noticed people flying over and around the Brooklyn Bridge. It turns out it was a publicity stunt designed by Thinkmodo for the the movie "Chronicle," which is due to release Feb. 3. In the movie, three teens get superpowers. But how did the folks at Thinkmodo, who put the stunt together, get those people-crafts to look the way they did?

Discovery News spoke with Gary Graf, of East Setauket, Long Island, who was the brains behind the design. He's been a flyer of radio controlled airplanes and helicopters for three decades. He even invented the helicopter-like contraption visible in the video, which carried cameras up to do aerial shots.

The trick was to use something that could hover, but at the same time didn't look like a plane. "We were looking for the silhouette," Graf told Discovery News. "We needed a platform of similar size to a human."
A helicopter wouldn't work as they can't swoop or dive, aside from looking wrong, and a straight-up airplane wasn't satisfactory either. They eventually found another hobbyist "who had a bunch of old designs in his basement" for oddly shaped airframes. It wasn't quite what they wanted, but it was closer. Finally, the group decided on using a combination of foam, carbon fiber tubing and a design similar to a box kite. The carbon fiver gives stiffness to the foam surfaces. It was light, about 3.3 pounds and delicate. "We called it a flying potato chip," Graf said.
The turboprop creates an airflow that runs through the center of the flyer's body; the legs (about where the calves are) and the hands act like flaps in a normal airplane. The thrust is from the center to the rear. A lot of the weight is in the battery, which is mounted forward, putting the center of gravity closer to the front. That allows the flyers to "flip."

Source:Discovery News