I love the noise it makes and how it manages to look like a helicopter and biology inspired. And the wing folded dive to get to the spice harvester is just fantastic.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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The reason nature has no rotation is because you can't connect nerves, blood etc. So making something that flaps up and down because nature does it, where rotation is far simpler and more efficient, is odd.
For this reason I found them somewhat absurd to look at. From the slow and sluggish start up to the suddenly physics defying power they got out of them.
Most of the problems with an ornithopter are the difficulties of engineering rather than concept, which I think it's safe to say a society as far in the future as Dune's may well have sufficiently solved. Considering how brutal the conditions of the planet are - sand is horrible to any and all mechanical workings - and how there's only really one safe place to land, the fact that the ornithopters can effectively glide or even just keep flying if either of its two propulsion mechanisms fails actually offers a really good safety margin for that environment specifically.
I mean, obviously they were chosen first and foremost because it's a cool visual. But within the context they make some sense.
They used ornithopters in the books (though I don't think the specifics of the design were ever described); I don't remember if Herbert ever specified why he used ornithopters and not helicopters, or planes, or airships, or levitating ships, though; maybe they'd be less likely to attract worms, maybe he just felt they added to the alien / far future feeling of the setting.