Nectar-drinking species of hummingbirds and bats are both excellent at hovering – one of the toughest aerodynamic feats – but they each have their own ways of doing it. Hummingbirds Keep reading
Tag: lift generation
Flying Backwards
Spend a summer afternoon floating in a kayak and chances are you’ll see some impressive aerial acrobatics from dragonflies. One of the dragonfly’s superpowers is its ability to fly backwards, Keep reading
Lift Over Wings
One of the most vexing topics for fluid dynamicists and their audiences is the subject of how wings generate lift. As discussed in the video above, there are a number Keep reading
Mosquito Flight
Mosquitoes are unusual fliers. Their wings are long and skinny, and they beat at around 700 strokes a second – incredibly quickly for their size. Examining how they move has Keep reading
Reader Question: Rudders
Reader le-mec writes: My question involves “fenestrated rudders”, a Chinese invention that involved cutting diamond-shaped holes in the rudders of ancient Chinese sailing ships (known as Junks). According to several Keep reading
Rio 2016: Synchro Swimming and Water Polo
Both synchronized swimming and water polo require competitors to hold themselves stable above the water’s surface without touching the pool’s bottom. One of the basic techniques for doing so in Keep reading
Sharks Swimming Sideways
Like many sharks, the great hammerhead shark is negatively buoyant, meaning that, absent other forces, it would sink in water. To compensate, sharks generate lift with their pectoral (side) fins Keep reading
Wingtip Vortices Visualized
In flight, airplane wings produce dramatic wingtip vortices. These vortices reduce the amount of lift a 3D wing produces relative to a 2D one. How much they influence the lift Keep reading
Flying with Large Ears
Evolution often requires compromise between competing effects. Large-eared bats, for example, rely on the size of their ears to aid their echolocation, but such large ears can hurt them aerodynamically, Keep reading
Perching Physics
Compared to birds, manmade aircraft tend to be quite limited and inelegant. Fixed-wing aircraft, for example, require long, flat areas for take-off and landing, whereas birds of all sizes are Keep reading