About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Plane With Flapping Wings
Status: Undetermined
I'm no aeronautical engineer, so I'm not qualified to say if the plane featured on the website of JCR Technology could fly or not, though it sure doesn't look to me like it would ever get off the ground. Apparently it's supposed to fly by means of eight flapping wings, located on either side of the plane. The website is entirely in French, so I can't determine if this is simply some kind of thought experiment, or a real plane that someone is trying to build. Definitely check out the computer-graphic simulations of the plane flying (look under the 'images' tab). Even in the simulations, it doesn't look like it could fly. There's a photostream on Flickr showing a crosssection of this plane being displayed at the Salon International des Inventions in Geneva, which seems to be a convention for people with crazy inventions.