Butterflies are some of the oddest flyers of the insect world, given the large size of their wings relative to their bodies. That could be a recipe for inefficient flight, Keep reading
Tag: flapping flight
Adjusting for Gusts
In flight, birds must adjust quickly to wind gusts or risk crashing. Research shows that the structure of birds’ wings enables them to respond faster than their brains can. The Keep reading
Flying Through Waterfalls
Swifts and starlings often make their nests behind waterfalls. To explore how these birds traverse their watery curtain, researchers observed hummingbirds, a smaller sister species, flying through an artificial waterfall. Keep reading
Hummingbird Flight in Slow Motion
Hummingbirds are impressive, acrobatic flyers. Their figure-8 wing stroke pattern produces about 70% of their lift on the downstroke, and the remainder during the backward upstroke. But their tails and Keep reading
Mimicking Insect Flight
There’s an oft-repeated tale that science cannot explain how a bumblebee flies. And while that may have been true 80 years ago, when engineers assumed they could apply their knowledge Keep reading
How Did Pterosaurs Fly?
One of my favorite aspects of fluid dynamics is how well it pairs with so many other fields, from mathematics and space exploration to biology, medicine, and even paleontology. That Keep reading
“Ornitographies”
If birds left trails in the sky, what would they look like? This is the question that haunted photographer Xavi Bou and inspired him to create his “Ornitographies” series. Using video of Keep reading
Surfing Honeybees
Honeybees have superpowers when it comes to their aerodynamics and impressive pollen-carrying, but their talents don’t end in the air. A new study confirms that honeybees can surf. Wet bees Keep reading
If You Teach a Goose to Fly
Scientists do all manner of odd things in the name of science. To teach bar-headed geese – birds capable of flying at the altitude of Everest – to fly in Keep reading
The Impressive Take-Off of Pigeons
One reason that peregrine falcons are such amazing fliers is that their prey, pigeons, are no slouches in flight, either. Able to take off vertically and accelerate to 100 kph in two Keep reading