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The physics of flight: II. Flapping wings

J Oliver Linton

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In any conventional aircraft the wings provide the lift and the engines provide the thrust. In a bird, however, the wings have to provide the thrust as well as the lift. In this article we shall use the ideas presented in the first article of this series to develop a simple theory to explain how this comes about, and use it to predict some important characteristics of the flight of birds, including their wingbeat patterns and their minimum power requirements.


PACS

47.85.Gj Aerodynamics

Subjects

Fluid dynamics

Dates

Issue 4 (July 2007)

Received 18 September 2006, in final form 30 October 2006



  1. The physics of flight: II. Flapping wings

    J Oliver Linton 2007 Phys. Educ. 42 358

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  4. Regularity of critical invariant circles of the standard nontwist map

    A Apte et al 2005 Nonlinearity 18 1173

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