Full-scale Ornithopter in flight! Radio Controlled Ornithopter! The Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) initiative is motivated by a desire to produce a tiny (15 cm span) aircraft for surveillance missions. In particular, a MAV could be used to assess situations too dangerous for direct human intervention. "Indoor" operations, for example, emphasize requirements for stationary and slow flight. Initially, lab-bench testing was performed with various candidate wings evaluated for lift production and power requirements. Subsequently, successful tethered flights were made and, most recently, brief free flights have been achieved. Currently, work is being directed to obtain longer duration, as well as develop a complementary theoretical model. Eventually, the airframe will be combined with an innovative artificial-muscle actuation system being developed by the prime contractor, SRI International of Menlo Park, California (this gives rise to the MAV's name, Mentor, after MENlo Park and TORonto). The technology for this is called Electrostrictive Polymer Actuated Muscle (EPAM), in which elastomeric actuators are made to efficiently contract and relax by means of rapid jolts of static electricity. Such a device is ideally suited for oscillatory motions, like flapping wings. A 30-cm model was constructed and successfully demonstrated in a tethered mode in January, 2001. The Ornithopter in flight reveals long-term interest in the physics of flapping-wing flight which gave rise to the successful tests of a 3-m span engine-powered remotely piloted proof-of-concept model in 1991. This accomplishment, which is recognized as a first by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), required innovative structural designs as well as development of a design-oriented computer analysis incorporating unsteady aerodynamic modeling and aeroelastic tailoring. At all times these design solutions were motivated by their applicability towards a full-scale piloted aircraft. A feasibility study in 1993 and 1994 showed that such an aircraft is now possible. That is, a flight-worthy full-scale powered flapping-wing aircraft could be built by using this technological foundation as well as modern aerospace composite material. To achieve this would be the realization of humanity's oldest dream of flight. For more information visit http://utias.utoronto.ca/test/res/fm/fda-proj.html for more information.