Birds Give a Lesson to Plane Designers

Roland Piquepaille points out a news release from the University of Michigan where researchers are looking to birds and bats for insights into aerospace engineering. Wei Shyy and his colleagues are learning from solutions developed by nature and applying them to the technology of flight. A presentation on this topic was also given at the 2005 TED conference. From the news release: "The roll rate of the aerobatic A-4 Skyhawk plane is about 720 degrees per second. The roll rate of a barn swallow exceeds 5,000 degrees per second. Select military aircraft can withstand gravitational forces of 8-10 G. Many birds routinely experience positive G-forces greater than 10 G and up to 14 G. Flapping flight is inherently unsteady, but that's why it works so well. Birds, bats and insects fly in a messy environment full of gusts traveling at speeds similar to their own. Yet they can react almost instantaneously and adapt with their flexible wings."

Comments

Re:Missing tag.

[arminw]

.....Mass of a sparrow at takeoff......

There are other feats that birds are good at that have nothing to do with mass per se. Example:

How does the Golden Plover (Pluvialis dominica) find its way each fall to the over 2000 miles distant islands of Hawaii from Alaska? Who programmed that navigation system into its miniature brain? No gradual processes over time can work here. The FIRST plover setting out has to make it, because plovers can't swim. Not only does it have to get the location right, no matter what the weather, but, since there are no refueling stops, each bird has to carry the right amount of fat fuel. It turns out that the amount of fuel a plover carries mandates that the individual bird would crash into the ocean about 800 miles short of its destination. However, since they fly in flocks, in formation, only the lead bird has the full wind resistance load. They take turns in the lead position and thus the all arrive together. All this had to work the very first time.

There are some things in nature, that gradual evolution over vast amounts of time cannot deal with.

Re:It's the people, not the planes.

[jacquesm]

/me suggests rolandpwhatever strap himself to a 747 and attempt a 5000 degree per second roll.

The way I see it is that that way we get to kill two birds with one stone :)