Wings

Clipping Wings

The aerodynamics of revolving wings I. Model hawkmoth wings.

Recent work on flapping hawkmoth models has demonstrated the importance of a spiral 'leading-edge vortex' created by dynamic stall, and maintained by some aspect of spanwise flow, for creating the lift required during flight. This study uses propeller models to investigate further the forces acting on model hawkmoth wings in 'propeller-like' rotation ('revolution'). Steadily revolving model haw...

Perching with Fixed Wings

Human pilots have the extraordinary ability to remotely maneuver small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) far outside the flight envelope of conventional autopilots. Given the tremendous thrustto-weight ratio available on these small machines [1, 2], linear control approaches have recently produced impressive demonstrations that come close to matching this agility for a certain class of aerobatic ...

Dark wings of desire

After spending two postdoctoral years each in the laboratories of Jun-ichi Tomizawa in Tokyo and Dick Epstein in Geneva, David Shub joined the faculty of the Biology Department at the University at Albany, SUNY, where he has been ever since. For the past 17 years his lab has explored the self-splicing group I introns in bacteria and phages, with emphasis on their origin, distribution, and funct...

Artificial insect wings

The development of flapping-wing micro air vehicles (MAVs) demands a systematic exploration of the available design space to identify ways in which the unsteady mechanisms governing flapping-wing flight can best be utilized for producing optimal thrust or maneuverability. Mimicking the wing kinematics of biological flight requires examining the potential effects of wing morphology on flight per...