Glider From Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Gets a Breathtaking Test-Flight
Want to experience the magic of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind minus the apocalyptic war and poisonous mutant insects? Artist Kazuhiko Hachiya and a team of engineers’ OpenSky project has been working on building Nausicaä’s glider since 2006, and this footage is from Takikawa Skypark last month is kind of amazing.
From the video description:
The OpenSky M-02J is a Japanese jet-powered glider inspired by the Möwe aircraft flown by the protagonist in the Hayao Miyazaki anime Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Seeing the glider go from Miyazaki’s imagination (I could stare at the concept art for hours), to real life is jaw-dropping, and the idea that the glider lots of us could only dream of riding as we pretended to be the princess of the Valley of the Wind negotiating relations between humans and gigantic insects is out there feels really inspiring.
It’s an endeavor that was born out of love for the movie and engineering that I’m sure Miyazaki would definitely approve of. In fact, OpenSky rejected official endorsement from Ghibli and Miyazaki to avoid troubling them should an accident occur.
What did you think about the test-flight? Would you take a spin on the glider?
(via Popular Science)
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