Could a man fly using "bug" wings?

Question

It is clear that man is too heavy to fly using bird-like wings that would flap. They would simply have to be too large and use too much energy for taking off.

However, how about wings like on a bumble-bee? A bumble-bee's wings are very small and lightweight compared to the bee's mass.

Could one use nano-technology to create a super-strong ultra-lightweight wing that would be powered not by a motor, but by artificial muscle also created from nano-technology?

Man would wear this aparatus, not to fly like a bird, but to "buzz about" like a bug.

The technology for this does not yet exist, but will within 25 years. Assuming we can create very strong artificial, non-mechanical muscle to power the super-fast beating wings, wouldn't something like this be feasible?

That being said, how large would the wings need to be, say to allow a 180 lb man to fly like a bug? They say that from a scientific standpoint, bumble-bees cannot fly, yet they do.

Another way of asking this:

If a bumble bee were the length of a 6' tall man, what would it weigh?

Would it still be able to fly, or it only possible because it is small?

Answer 1

You have a problem with "similitude" with this concept.

Area grows as the square of length and width and volume grows as the cube of length width and height. Since mass is dependent on volume, the wing loading on a bumblebee wing and the underlying structure is only possible in a very small size to lift a very small object.

You would have more luck coming up with a mechanical "bee" and attach 10,000 to 20,000 of them to a suit. The problem you have there is the wakes and interference of air flow from one bee to another.

This is what makes "giant spiders" (ala "the Lord of the Rings movie) nonsensical. An exoskeleton structure only makes sense on a very small scale due to similitude. At some fairly small scale (hummingbird), an endoskeleton is the way to go.

Another thought regarding similitude would be the actual mass of the wings and their area compared to their stiffness. The natural frequency of such a ring about some pivot would be much, much lower than the natural frequency of a bee (it is theorized that this is how flies and bees work - their wing system is set to resonate at the wing beat frequency, thus requiring very little energy input to maintain the beat).

Answer 2

it is impossible the only way man can fly so far is by plane