Feb 15, 2025 20:00:00

If scientists seriously consider 'What if humans got wings?'

When we were little, we saw birds flying freely and thought, 'I want to fly like that.' If such a simple imagination were to become a reality, Live Science, a science news site, interviewed experts about what humans would look like.

If humans could fly, how big would our wings be? | Live Science

https://www.livescience.com/health/if-humans-could-fly-how-big-would-our-wings-be

According to Ty Hedrick, a professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the size of the wings required for flight is determined primarily by body weight, and for a human weighing 70 kg and standing at least 150 cm tall, the wingspan required to fly is about 6 meters.

The figure is based on

a study published in 2007 (PDF file) by Robert Nadds, a senior lecturer in biology at the University of Manchester. In a paper published in the Journal of Avian Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal specializing in ornithology, Nadds considered how the parameters of a bird's wing change with weight and summarized them in an equation.

Based on that equation, Hedrick calculated the size of wings needed for humans and commented, 'I thought it was surprisingly small.'

Fossil research has revealed that there may have been giant birds with wingspans of up to six metres in the past.

Research results announced on 'birds with wingspans up to 6 meters that can fly' - GIGAZINE

When imagining a human being who can fly, many people imagine an angel-like figure with bird wings growing from its back. However, according to Michael Habib, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Dinosaur Research Institute, flapping the wings on the back requires separate shoulder blades and 'flight muscles' that connect the chest to the back. Unfortunately, humans do not have either.

Taking these factors into account, it seems that bat-like wings are more suitable for humans than bird-like wings, in which case the hands would grow to a wingspan of six metres, with membranes covering the spaces between the fingers.

And to actually fly, you need muscles to move the wings. In birds, on average, 16 to 18 percent of the muscles in the whole body are dedicated to flight, and some species have up to 30 percent of the muscles concentrated in the chest.

Compared to birds, bats have more muscle mass distributed throughout their bodies, but a person with bat wings would still look quite inhuman. 'They would have very protruding chests and a very toned back,' Habib said.

In addition, there are elements of flight such as 'flapping,' 'gliding,' 'hovering,' and 'soaring,' and which one is the main one is related to the type of wings. For example, birds that flap their wings throughout the flight have short and sturdy wings, but albatrosses, known for their 'dynamic soaring' flying style that rides air currents and flies almost without flapping, have long wings compared to their body size. According to Habib, humans, who are relatively large, are also more likely to glide without flapping their wings much.

Taking off is also an issue, as flapping its 20-foot wingspan would knock it to the ground, making it difficult to simply flap the wings up and down to take off, Hedrick said.

Therefore, Habib proposed a method called 'quadrapedal launch,' in which the animal stands on four limbs and then jumps to take off. According to

a paper published by Habib et al. in the academic journal PLOS One in 2010, it is highly likely that pterosaurs, the first vertebrates to evolve the ability to fly more than 200 million years ago, also walked and took off on four legs, including wings. Modern vampire bats are also known to walk and run on all fours.

By Luke Holmes

According to two experts interviewed by Live Science, if humans were to acquire wings to fly, they would look like 'a busty, muscular bat-man with arms that stretched out to six meters.'

'Humans will need many adaptations to fly that birds have acquired over the years,' Hedrick said.