The cats. Would go. Completely berserk.
I suppose the Flytech Dragonfly is more of an entothopter than an ornithopter, technically.
There's a lot of porpoising, but it flies quite well, for a (expected-to-be) pretty inexpensive and durable toy.
This is much more elegant, but also far more fragile.
This bird's pretty much got it down, but I bet it's not cheap.
This one's cheating.
You can start ornithoptering with free-flight (no remote control) rubber power...
...(note cat in this video that wants nothing whatsoever to do with the thing), then move on to something fancier...
Full-scale versions are about as practical as you'd expect:
18 December 2006 at 6:40 am
Those rubber-powered ornithopters are fairly amateurish (although what can one expect from a kid). I've seen some back home that can manage five or six minutes of free flight. That's the benefit you reap when you've got a 50cm wide aircraft that weighs single-digit grams.
18 December 2006 at 10:59 pm
I think the 3rd clip's one of these: http://ornithopter.org/store/cybird.info.html
To be fair, doesn't look an obscene price for a comedy flying widget.
23 December 2006 at 3:52 am
Wow... Just... wow.