A recent viral video shows the adventures of The Airborne Turkish Man, on a journey to the skies aboard his trusty Parasol-mobile.
And if you think this is a joke, it came very close to being a reality, as shown here:
However funny this may seem, it also gives everyone a simple lesson in flight. This ‘method’ of flight can be compared to hang-gliding and hot-air balloons, both of which fly up due to moving air being caught under them.
A hang-glider can keep in the air because of its large surface area. As it falls, a decent amount of air is caught under its sailcloth wing. As the hang-glider is not that much heavier than this air, it’s fall is slowed by the mass of the air.
In the case of the viral video, the air, instead of being stationary, is pushing up on the bottom of the ‘wing’ (parasol) with enough force to overpower the force of the mass of the parasol, resulting in flight.
A hot-air balloon flies because hot air rises. Air inside the balloon is heated up by an open flame (which is why balloons are at risk of combusting), causing it to lose density as the air particles spread out. As air behaves as a fluid, the less dense, warm air rises up. The balloon itself catches this air and, due to the balloons large surface area, is pushed up.
In the case of the adventures of The Turkish Man, the air is rising up due to wind, and the umbrella behaves as the balloon.
This viral video, short and funny on the surface, can be seen as a lesson for engineers of flying and gliding objects all around, demonstrating the basics of the machines they intend to build. While the adventures of The Turkish Man aboard his Parasol-mobile may have been confined to less than a minute of footage, their effects will undoubtedly last longer.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/hot-air-balloon.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_gliding
