There are no powered spinning propellers in nature. When evolution has found an advantage to producing thrust in a fluid, it has done it mainly by flapping things back and forth. This new VTOL ...

During the preliminary design phase of flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FWMAVs), there currently exists a deficiency in ...

No matter how good our human designs may be, evolution has had a 4-billion-year head start, so there’s no shame in copying off Mother Nature’s homework. Engineers at the University of Bristol have ...

In 2021, a group of scientists from China engineered the RoboFalcon—a bird-inspired flapping-wing robot with a newly engineered mechanism made to drive bat-style morphing wings capable of flight.

The wing dynamics of flying animal species have been the inspiration for numerous flying robotic systems. While birds and bats typically flap their wings using the force produced by their pectoral and ...

A simulation study was initiated to investigate alternative wing and flap controls for tilt-wing aircraft. The initial phase of the study compared the flying qualities of both a conventional ...

Jerry Seinfeld launched his career with Bee Movie, an insect-themed animated feature that took the world by storm in 2007. It posed the quandary – that supposedly, according to all known laws of ...

Zabdiel Avives flew across New York, gliding over and around buildings on the landscape — but the 12-year-old boy only had to travel about a dozen miles from his Maywood home for the experience. He ...

At this point, building a flying vehicle isn’t terribly hard. Aviation enthusiasts can buy DIY kits and build themselves a plane that can easily and safely take to the skies. But a flying vehicle that ...

An analysis of hoverfly flight shows that wing design, not faster flapping, enables the smallest species to generate enough ...

Archaeopteryx was a flapper, not just a glider. The shape of the ancient bird’s wing bones suggests it was capable of short bursts of active, flapping flight, similar to how modern birds like ...