Page 4 - Flight Insight 2016
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Birds, bats, and insects regularly outperform man-made aircraft flyers to advance our engineering capabilities. In particular,
in aerobatics and handling of unpredictable environments. The Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) have the potential to revolutionize
SR71 Blackbird jet flying beyond Mach 3 covers about 30 body our sensing and information gathering capabilities, such as
lengths per second. But a common pigeon flying at 50 miles environmental monitoring of areas inaccessible to ground
per hour covers 75. The roll rate of an aerobatic plane is about vehicles and homeland security. In order to create the broad
720 degrees per second, while the roll rate of a barn swallow flight characteristics that support take-off, forward flight of
exceeds 5,000 degrees per second. Select military aircraft can varying speed, hover, perch, threat avoidance, station tracking,
withstand gravitational forces of 8-10 G, yet many birds routinely and payload variations in MAVs, we need to better understand
experience positive G-forces greater than 10 and up to 14 G. the interplay between kinematics, geometry, and aerodynamics
Natural flyers obviously have some highly developed capabilities of natural flyers. The common characteristics shared by MAVs
that have yet to be incorporated in engineering. They are not and natural flyers have spurred the active communication and
only lighter, but also have much more adaptive structures as well collaboration between the aerospace and biological science
as know-how to integrate aerodynamics with changes in wing communities.
and body shapes. Birds and insects can fly in environments
with gusts traveling at speeds comparable to their own, yet they I have put together this collection of photographs, many of
can react and adjust instantaneously with their flexible wings to which were taken around my home and with family and friends. I
remain airborne through wind, rain, and snow. hope these pictures help us appreciate the beauty of the nature,
as well as inspire the development of new flight vehicles.
Besides admiring the elegance of their form and dazzling
splendor of their plumage, we can gain insight from the natural So please explore, examine, and enjoy.
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