Sai,

First Indian Ornithopter creator may not have been IIT grad. Personally, without taking away any credit from Mr. Nandkumar, I would not like to call this as innovation. The concept of Ornithopter existed in 2003. In fact it was first demonstrated in 1929 by Alexander Lippisch who was a pioneer in aerodynamics.

All I am saying is that hobbyist like us are in this for flying, yes we tend to be creative to a very limited extent, but this is in line with the existing laws and designs. We may not have enough knowledge to innovate.

Pankaj

As the subject says lack of rc innovation in india.. I see some reasons for that I maybe wrong..

Money, Time, Lack of Resources, Knowledge, and as anwar says lot of people are just not bothered to make spads or innovate different things and are completely satisfied with buying & flying..

To take my example i wanted to make ailerons for my easy star and i was going to do it no matter what, but i guess time and work took toll on me..

Pankaj - I agree that he didnt innovate it but the efforts & the steps he took to make it successful is in itself a huge innovation , rite ?

As Ismail says anything can fly and spads just prove it 

Considering the comments till now, we are mixing innovation and some one's effort to make something without proper materials, tools and just plain great effort. The latter is great effort but surely not something from which we can take away a technique or approach that can be re-used.

Innovation must lead to something that is a takeaway for more folks - for example a building material that is better (measurable) than what we use today - cheaper (that would be the best innovation).

Before the first flight from Kittyhawk so many ppl tried out wings, gliders and what else, only to learn or simply to perish in a failed attempt. Does that mean that the Wright brothers were not innovative in what they successfully completed??? Can it be said that winged aircraft were already invented before them and they just happened to be the successful ones??

Absolutely not, they did something different, a differential that made them immortal.

Builders aren't the only ones that are innovative, but its going to be real tough for a pure-flyer to claim innovation 

One sure fire killer of innovation it the tendency to trivialize and go back deep into history and claim that some one some where has already done something and so its no point or no use doing it!! Thats the worst attitude to innovation. Try doing the same thing and you will do it differently and you may uncover what that individual in history did not or overlooked or could not.

Else, all planes even today would look like the Flyer!!

Quote from: tg on September 22, 2009, 11:25:48 AM
Builders aren't the only ones that are innovative, but its going to be real tough for a pure-flyer to claim innovation 

Totally agree.  It is much harder to come up with newer moves/maneuvers; so who ever does, that is pure gold !  One fairly recent (yet some years old) example would be VPP aka 4D flight.

It is much easier to innovate on the materials and designs side (or at least the vistas are much wider).

That is an interesting thread for sure.
I agree with Sai, to the fact that we do not innovate as much as people in the West do, and this is not limited to RC, but in our general approach and is reflected everywhere. Be it IT, or music, even Cinemas. Does Bollywood sound very creative ?

Why is this so ? In my opinion, this will deserve a long answer and i will try to address it in another post here, later today.

Lets address innovation first.

As Anwar said, I do not consider scratch building (from a downloaded or copied plan), or using alternate materials, or doing a couple of mods here and there innovation. So, if i downloaded an Extra 330S plan for then net, bought some good balsa from a retailer, then converted the plans to into AutoCad, and then searched and searched for a Laser cutting shop, and found one, got the wood cut, assembled the airframe, and substituted locally available materials in a few places
to build a flyable plane, i would not call that that innovative . It does reflect your resourcefulness and tenacity and building skills, but real innovation is doing something that has never been done before. Even if you built a jet engine, it would not be called innovation. That would awe a lot of people, but its not innovation.
Unfortunately, and with due respect to everyone, till date I have not seen any "innovative" thread in this forum. There are some very nice people here, who are dedicated and are exceptionally skilled, but nothing innovative so far.

Ok, so now that i have explained, my defination of innovation, let me come back to something else i wanted to share: About the hobby,

After reading the posts (in this thread and others), I somehow found the general tendency for people to think, and comment that those who are scratch building, or experimenting, or using alternate materials are better hobbyists than those who "buy-and-fly". I very strongly disagree with this thought.

In my opinion, there is no right or wrong way to go in this (or any) hobby. We are all here to have relieve our stresses, and relax and enjoy. If that means buying a new ARF and setting it up precisely, and then trimming it out till perfection, then that would be as good a someone who scratch built a plane. We  are not here to judge people, or their dedication to this hobby.
Why is someone who scratch builds or someone who experiments more often than others considered a better modeler ? No doubt their building skills are good, but that wouldnt put them above everyone else.

Those were some of my views. This was not intended to be pointed at anyone, and if you disagree please share your views.

Gaurav.

I think majority here are getting mixed up between invention and innovation .

eg :
You would say that is an innovative way of doing a job , would you say that it is an inventive way of doing a job

So this clearly shows innovation is a different way of doing a certain job .

I think this explains the subtle difference  .

This also implies that innovation is normally an improvement  . My experience is that this being the case it is a skill that can be developed  what is needed is the will  to try .

I agree with TG trivializing innovation is not right eg Lets take the case of  a car the fact that the car was in existence for a long time  does not mean improvements beyond the first car are pointless  

Sai  


Sai

But as Ismail pointed out earlier, scratch building does provide a good avenue for real innovation to follow, so it is right to consider these as baby steps towards something that is truly unique. Some credit is due there.

Quote from: rcforall on September 22, 2009, 12:18:09 PM
I think majority here are getting mixed up between invention and innovation .

Nope, what is being discussed is more the difference between improvisation and innovation   Innovation is not in the league of improvisation at all, it is held at a much higher level of esteem.

I am sure this thread is going to be like a bottomless pit. Everyone is right about their views.

I should say this - "Opinions are like butt-holes! Everyone has got one"..

Any discussion is better than no discussion ?!?!? 

Translating to your terms, "having a butt-hole is better than not having one !" 

Anwar,
Thats one gob stopper if I have ever seen one......

Pankaj

Ya... its better to have one of those..  .. so here goes a collection of all butt-holes!

I kind of think that the long time RC flyers will never become innovative as they have their own way of doing things. The new generation RC flyers are the one to try out new things as they have more resources. (And generally, kids nowadays are more sharper than the previous gens).

-Ismail

Quote from: izmile on September 22, 2009, 02:00:19 PM

I kind of think that the long time RC flyers will never become innovative as they have their own way of doing things. The new generation RC flyers are the one to try out new things as they have more resources. (And generally, kids nowadays are more sharper than the previous gens).

-Ismail

Bang On target   Ismail  with both the Butt Hole as well as the above statement I agree with is 200 % that is my experience with customers as well.

Yes, but he killed the thread 

 

 

Here are some real glimpses of experimentation.

Very nice!

Quote from: rcforall on September 22, 2009, 10:11:49 AM
http://www.haddadrc.com/

Yep, this guy goes on to show that almost any shape and material can fly !

http://www.haddadrc.com/

i m here to do it [complete the lack of innovation]