The Green Barn Owl reveals how birds fly in noble winds

Scientists at the University of Bristol and the Royal Veterinary College Ledge have discovered how birds can fly in glorious conditions – findings that could inform the development of bio-induced small-scale aircraft.

“Birds regularly fly in high winds near buildings and terrain – often gusts as fast as their flight speed. So the ability to cope with sharp and sudden changes in the wind is essential for their survival and to be able to land safely.” Catch the prey, ”said Dr. A.S.S., of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bristol. Shane Windsor said.

“We know that birds are surprisingly confronted with situations that challenge aerial vehicles of the same size, but, until then, we didn’t understand the mechanics behind it,” said Dr. Said Windsor.

Study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society b, Demonstrates how bird wings act as a suspension system to cope with changing wind conditions. The party used an innovative combination of high-speed, video-based 3-D surface reconstruction, computed tomography (CT) scans, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to understand how birds ‘reject’ by wing morphing. Shape and posture of their wings.

In an experiment conducted at the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College, the team filmed a barn owl named Lily, the vert generated from the fan also passed through a series of gusts, the strongest of which was as fast as its flight speed. The lily is a trained falconry bird that is the p of many nature documents, so not all lights and cameras were at least dazzling.

“We started with a very polite rage if Lily had any troubles, but soon realized that even at the highest gust speed we could – Lily was unsure; she flew straight to get the food prize through her trainer Lloyd Buck. , “Professor Richard Bomfrey of the Royal Veterinary College commented.

“The green lumps throb and constantly keep its head and torso surprisingly stable, as if it were flying with a suspension system. When we analyzed it, we were surprised that the suspension-system effect was not just due to aerodynamics, Benefited from its set of wings. For reference, each of our upper limbs is about 5% of our body weight; for a bird it is about double, and it does that set to effectively absorb the gust, “said Lead. -Official Dr. from Royal Veterinary College.

“Perhaps the most exciting is the discovery that a very fast portion of the suspension effect is built into the mechanics of the wings, so the birds don’t have to actively do anything to do its job. The mechanics are very elegant. There is no waste in your hands because the force there is canceled. Anyone who plays the game of bat-ball knows how easy this is. The wing has a sweetspot, like a bat. Analysis suggests that this power works around the power of this sweet. And this reduces the disturbance in the body during the first fraction of a second. The process is automated and buys enough time to kick other clever static processes, “said Dr. Jonathan Stevenson from Bristol University.

Dr. Windsor said the next step in the research, provided by the European Research Council (ERC), is to develop bio-induced suspension systems for small-scale aircraft by the Air Force, the Office of Scientific Research and the Wellcome Trust.