Flights of fancy! Designer paints concept airplanes inspired by dinosaurs, dolphins and even chickens - but could they ever fly?

From dinosaurs to dolphins and birds, one artist has been inspired by nature to create incredible images of concept airplanes.

Alex Brady set out to create aircraft that look streamlined, futuristic and beautiful, but experts are not convinced that machines based on the designs would ever be able to fly.

The ‘100 per cent whimsical’ drawings are also influenced by popular sci-fi films as Mr Brady, 31, from Cambridge, wanted to draw 'instantly recognizable craft’ as iconic as Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise.

While he has no background in aircraft design, Mr Brady has drawn jets for films and computer games that look like they could soar though the skies on other planets and in future times.

‘They look like they might fly but are strange and silly,’ he told MailOnline.

Among the creatures which Mr Brady has based his designs upon, are: Warthogs, zebras and woodlice, marine creatures like manta rays, dolphins and jellyfish, birds such as swifts and swallows as well as the pterodactyl, a new extinct ancient flying reptile.

He set out to draw machines that also act as ‘characters’ because of their animalistic qualities and hopes one day to design futuristic transport full-time for films and games.

‘I wanted them to look instantly recognizable and to make them look kind of friendly’ despite the fact that many war planes are built to kill people.

He admits that he has never grown out of dinosaurs and is ‘stealing from the best’ that nature has to offer.

‘You can’t come away from watching a David Attenborough documentary without thinking about how beautiful and interesting nature is. And I’d love cars and planes to be beautiful and sculptural – a little like yachts are. Not just about the function of sailing.’

He said that Steve Wheeler particularly inspires him because of his work for film director Peter Jackson, models of sci-fi vehicles and writing as well as films such as Star Wars and author Iain M Banks.

Mr Brady creates his amazing drawings by first making 3D models using computer software called 3D Studio Max.

He then draws on top of them in Photoshop and said that while the technique allows him great accuracy in his work, there are also ‘happy accidents of the pen’ that gives his work impact and lets them flow.

While some of the futuristic aircraft concepts certainly look like they can fly, Professor Ian Poll, of Cranfield Aerospace who is an expert in aerospace engineering and a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is doubtful that the ideas would create a real flying machine.

‘Birds and dinosaurs are nature’s ultimate evolved flying machines,’ he told MailOnline

He said that Mr Brady’s art is fanciful and creative, but would probably not make for efficient aircraft built upon engineering knowledge.
‘Birds and dinosaurs don’t have jet engines or propellers to accommodate and their propulsion is limited by bone and muscle – meaning that they have to flap – which is not very efficient at all.’

Professor Poll explained that if you design an aircraft around a bird, the best thing you could come up with is a copy of a bird.

‘If you design one around a jet or propeller you get something appropriate to the power those technologies generate and probably a large wing span for efficiency as well as a blended wing and fuselage (the aircraft’s body that holds the crew, passengers or cargo).

He did concede that some of the designs look as if they do have wings and the body of the aircraft, which could help them to fly, but the circular design inspired by a jellyfish, which also looks like many popular visions of UFOs, is ‘out of the question’ in terms of engineering.

‘It would be really inefficient and you would need a different kind of propulsion system [than currently used] to make it fly,’ Professor Poll said.

However, he said that Nasa’s prototype X-48B craft - which is a blended wing body concept and a cross between a conventional plane and flying wing design – does bear some resemblance to some of Mr Brady’s designs.

An expert at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) said: 'Most [of the drawings] look pretty unlikely but there is a lot of academic research into bio-inspired designs of many things. There is a lot to be learnt from nature but it is a lot more complex that copying the shape.'