Talk:Bill Lishman

Ornithopters
I've been thinking about the Operation migration project to guide birds to their habitat (Operation Migration, ...). It strikes me that actually, a manned aircraft isn't necessairy (too expensive in purchasing cost, fuel consumption), and even an unmanned aircraft is probably not necessairy neither. Instead, artificial birds (featuring wing-based propulsion) are probably a much more efficient method, and the birds themselves will probably also be much more eager to be guided by these devices. If you contact a producer of artificial birds, this should be very easy to work out.

Artificial birds don't have propellers (unlike airplanes) and can be made almost identical to an actual bird (offcourse for each bird species a different design needs to be made). They're frequently usedie as predator birds to scare away ie doves, ... Look into the video's of Robert Musters (peregrine falcon, BlueFalcon design, ...) and you'll see what I mean by "artificial birds". The only thing which may be a problem though is the control/range. Given that male/female birds of any size can be made of that exact species, and given that several birds for guiding a single flock can be produced, success rates should be higher than with an aircraft (which is allot larger, weird to birds and therefore much more prone to scare away the birds)

For the control: rather than using remote control (R/C), it's best to make it autonomous (else the artificial bird can not fly very far before going out of range of the radio communication), so basically a "robot". A simple one should be relatively easy to do. A more advanced one (which also incorporates variables which birds take into account, ie windspeed/altitude, swarm movement, ... may be more difficult but I guess that this too is still achievable. Perhaps it can be made based on software as ArduPilot.

An other thing is the energy storage; I think it's probably best to use a miniature internal combustion engine rather than electric batteries (this also allows quick refilling when the birds stop to rest). See Radio-controlled_car KVDP (talk) 09:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

bill lisman
lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.25.187.26 (talk) 14:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Wonderland
At some point, a user blanked extensive information on Lishman. I'm placing one of the paragraphs here, but returning the high level content to the article. -- Zanimum (talk) 03:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Lishman created two sculptures for the Medieval Faire section of Canada's Wonderland, as well as some smaller works for application to the buildings. The most prominent is a dragon at the entrance to the Dragon Fire. Originally intended to hold a sign, park management decided they liked it enough as a standalone sculpture. He was allowed to design it from scratch, as opposed to follow preset designs established before he was hired. The sculpture took him and assistant Richard Van Heuvelan two months. The other sculpture was the wild boar at Wild Beast, both of which were built at his home in Blackstock, Ontario, for about $75,000. Signs by Lishman included Sherwood Florist, Boo Boo's Buggys, an ice cream cone, and for a popcorn counter.