We systematically investigated the effect of body rotation on the aerodynamic torque generation on flapping wings during fast turning maneuvers (body saccades) in the fruit fly Drosophila. A quasi-steady aerodynamic simulation of turning maneuvers with symmetrically flapping wings showed that body rotation causes a substantial aerodynamic counter-torque, known as flapping counter-torque (FCT), ...

More than a million insects and approximately 11,000 vertebrates utilize flapping wings to fly. However, flapping flight has only been studied in a few of these species, so many challenges remain in understanding this form of locomotion. Five key aerodynamic mechanisms have been identified for insect flight. Among these is the leading edge vortex, which is a convergent solution to avoid stall f...

From observations of swimming of the shell-less pteropod mollusc Clione antarctica we compare swimming velocities achieved by the organism using ciliated surfaces alone with velocities achieved by the same organism using a pair of flapping wings. Flapping dominates locomotion above a swimming Reynolds number Re in the range 5-20. We test the hypothesis that Re ≈ 5-20 marks the onset of “flappin...

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...

over a wide range of speeds (Westneat, 1996; Walker and Westneat, 2000, 2002a,b). Swimming performance (determined in speed endurance tests for fishes) shows that pectoral propulsors in some species are capable of generating thrusts that can power speeds up to 10 body lengths s–1 (Walker and Westneat, 2002a,b). In addition, these species are highly maneuverable in complex three-dimensional reef...

From observations of swimming of the shell-less pteropod mollusc Clione antarctica we compare swimming velocities achieved by the organism using ciliated surfaces alone with velocities achieved by the same organism using a pair of flapping wings. Flapping dominates locomotion above a swimming Reynolds number Re in the range 5–20. We test the hypothesis that Re≈ 5–20 marks the onset of ‘flapping...

Fidicina mannifera Fab. (mass 3 g) can fly at a body temperature of 22 °C, but take-off is usually preceded by an endothermic warm-up that elevates Tth to 28 °C or higher. Warm-up is accompanied by slow, almost imperceptible, wing movements, gentle abdominal pumping and an increase in V02 to about 16 times the resting level. During wing-flapping in fixed flight, V02 increases explosively to abo...

Flexible flapping wings have garnered a large amount of attention within the micro aerial vehicle (MAV) community: a critical component of MAV flight is the coupling of aerodynamics and structural dynamics. This paper presents a computational framework for simulating shell-like wing structures flapping in incompressible flow at low Reynolds numbers in both hover and forward flight. The framewor...

Recent studies suggest that fruit flies use subtle changes to their wing motion to actively generate forces during aerial maneuvers. In addition, it has been estimated that the passive rotational damping caused by the flapping wings of an insect is around two orders of magnitude greater than that for the body alone. At present, however, the relationships between the active regulation of wing ki...

The objective of this paper is to clarify the principle of stabilization in flapping-of-wings flight of a butterfly, which is rhythmic and cyclic motion. For this purpose, a dynamics model of a butterfly is derived by Lagrange’s method, where the butterfly is considered as a rigid multi-body system. For the aerodynamic forces, a panel method is applied. Validity of the mathematical models is sh...