[kmiroslav]

Nothing wrong with looking at nature and trying to get inspiration from it (e.g. neural nets) but ever since we realized that flight was easier to implement with chemical combustion than by flapping wings, we know that just because something works in nature doesn't mean it will be easy to replicate for human use.

[huuu]

True. But because as today it's easier to implement doesn't mean we won't have aircraft with flapping wings in the future.

[jdmichal]

We probably won't, at least not at human-scale and not on Earth. Flapping wings don't scale; there's a reason you have to get to #12 of the heaviest birds list to get one that flies, at ~13% the maximum mass of the heaviest bird.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_birds#Table_of...

[DigitalJack]

I wonder where pterodactyls would fall on that scale.

[jdmichal]

Looks like Wikipedia has us covered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size#Speculation_abo...

From the references, this is a pretty good read:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-pterosaurs-fir...