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"Allowing air currents to do the work of lifting them makes frigatebirds' flight hugely efficient. The heart rate monitors Weimerskirch and his colleagues attac

"Allowing air currents to do the work of lifting them makes frigatebirds' flight hugely efficient. The heart rate monitors Weimerskirch and his colleagues attached to the birds showed that they didn't flap their wings at all while gaining altitude — the energy costs of ascending thousands of feet in the air were the same as when they were sitting still." Aeronautical engineers: what's it take to develop long-range flight vehicles that are this efficient? Graphite wings/fuselage?

openasocket 10y ago
This probably works because the frigate bird is so light compared to an aircraft: thermals generate sufficient lift for them to stay aloft. Though you might be able to apply some of this to a really light UAV...
alphapapa 10y ago
Gliders have existed for many years, and sometimes skilled pilots can fly for hundreds of miles riding thermals and updrafts. The problems are payload and reliability. The aircraft itself may not weigh much, but whatever you want to carry will likely be. And if you can't find a thermal when or where you need one, you have to land.
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  If birds can maneuver continuously for over two months without landing, so can a machine. For me the question is can we both design the vehicle to have the correct physical properties, and an intelligent-enough automated flight computer? I think the former will simply require a very very large wingspan made of the lightest strongest material we have [currently Carbyne, formerly Graphite, with the metal alternative being "New Magnesium"]. Once this is accomplished, we could potentially make air transportation [in certain routes] much cheaper. This would have benefits like eliminating the risk of ocean pollution when a large ship crashes/capsizes, faster transportation of goods, and at the same time not be limited in transportation cost by oil market prices. And such designs, if made practical, could possibly be transferred to new aerospace engineering where weight-to-strength are at a premium. Designing an intelligent flight computer that can account for air currents could also make flight less turbulent, and potentially improve our understanding and prediction of weather patterns.
  - tonyarkles 10y ago
    There's also the pesky "refueling" bit. These birds run on fish; I don't think we've really designed effective ICE or fuel cells that run on fish yet.
    - walrus01 10y ago
      we've developed robots that will 'collect' biological matter (slugs) and ferment it into gases which can be used for electrical generation, but it's incredibly inefficient and likely not suited for aviation. http://archive.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/47156?currentPage=all http://archive.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/...
      - tonyarkles 10y ago
        > A prototype robot capable of hunting down over 100 slugs an hour and using their rotting bodies to generate electricity is being developed by engineers at the University of West England's Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory. That's both... disgusting and delightful!
    - Xylakant 10y ago
      Since the whole idea is that the flight pattern uses extremely little energy, solar cells would be an option.
- charlessw 10y ago
  Glider pilots have told me about using the heated air up drafts caused by large mall parking lots as a way to stay elevated. Amazing to think of all the air that is moving around us, and then using it to "bounce" from current to current.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    This suggests that more than a little bit of global warming is due to pavement.
    - vacri 10y ago
      You might be interested to read about Urban Heat Islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        Thanks. A roofing contractor told me once that putting a white reflective coating on flat roofs instead of the usual black tar would reduce the A/C bill by about 15%.
- charlessw 10y ago
  Glider pilots have told me about using the heated air up drafts caused by large mall parking lots as a way to stay elevated. Amazing to think of all the air that is moving around us, and then using it to "bounce" from current to current. It would be interesting to create a graph comparing an organism's weight versus passive distance traveled. Ie: a spider has low weight, but only travels 3,000 body lengths with a web as it's sail, versus this bird travels an amazing distance by using up drafts.
HillaryBriss 10y ago
Maybe unmanned drone gliders without any cargo, just some sensors. Of course, if they're anything like the frigate birds themselves, one of these gliders will eventually collide with a frigate bird. Then what? On second thought, just put sensors on some frigate birds and collect the data later, as this scientist is already doing. Sell the data to Google Earth. Split the profits with the birds.
cmontella 10y ago
:) This was exactly my research in gradschool. Sorry to self promote, but it's not often I get a chance to discuss my incredibly esoteric dissertation topic. I was part of a team working to get a UAV to perform a dynamic soaring maneuver, which allows an aircraft (or bird) to extract energy from wind gradients to support flight [1]. DS was first recognized in the albatross by Lord Rayleigh. Like the frigate bird in this artcle, the albatross is able to expend very little enegery while traveling great distances, thanks to its oceanic environment. Close to the ocean surface, friction between the wind and the water causes windspeed to slow. As you move up in altitude, windspeed increases. So you have this nice gradient that is always there for the albatross to take advantage of. The albatross locks its wings into place (using a big tendon sheath), and it performs successive climbing/diving maneuvers through this gradient, netting it kinetic energy at the end of each cycle. So my role in the project was the brains behind a soaring aircraft, which was being developed in tandem. I'm a little fuzzier on the specifics of how the aicraft was made, but it was a novel manufacturing process that allowed us to build very large, seamless carbon fiber wings [2]. As part of my work, I had to figure out how to find trajectories that would support flight, given an aircraft. I also had a formulation that would find an optimal aircraft as part of the solution. The key takeaways for the aircraft are very large wingspan, and also some heft to the airframe; you don't want the aircraft being too light, because most of the energy gain comes during the transfer between potential -> kinetic energy during the dive phase of the maneuver. Anyway, anyone really interested in the topic can take a look at our publications [3]. We looked at soaring in the jetstream, soaring in hurricanes, even reinforcement learning for a UAV to figure out how to soar better. [1] http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/future-flight-flight-becomes-perpetual http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/future-flig... [2] http://vader.cse.lehigh.edu/dynamicsoaring/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Finished-Wing21-1024x764.jpg http://vader.cse.lehigh.edu/dynamicsoaring/wp-content/upload... [3] http://www.dynamicsoaring.lehigh.edu/ http://www.dynamicsoaring.lehigh.edu/
- giulianob 10y ago
  It reminds me of how Mario flies in the Super Mario World ( http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/218714-super-mario-world-snes-screenshot-flying-with-a-cape.png http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/218714-super-mario-w... ) where he bobs up and down.

openasocket 10y ago

This probably works because the frigate bird is so light compared to an aircraft: thermals generate sufficient lift for them to stay aloft. Though you might be able to apply some of this to a really light UAV...

alphapapa 10y ago

Gliders have existed for many years, and sometimes skilled pilots can fly for hundreds of miles riding thermals and updrafts. The problems are payload and reliability. The aircraft itself may not weigh much, but whatever you want to carry will likely be. And if you can't find a thermal when or where you need one, you have to land.

peterwwillis 10y ago
If birds can maneuver continuously for over two months without landing, so can a machine. For me the question is can we both design the vehicle to have the correct physical properties, and an intelligent-enough automated flight computer? I think the former will simply require a very very large wingspan made of the lightest strongest material we have [currently Carbyne, formerly Graphite, with the metal alternative being "New Magnesium"]. Once this is accomplished, we could potentially make air transportation [in certain routes] much cheaper. This would have benefits like eliminating the risk of ocean pollution when a large ship crashes/capsizes, faster transportation of goods, and at the same time not be limited in transportation cost by oil market prices. And such designs, if made practical, could possibly be transferred to new aerospace engineering where weight-to-strength are at a premium. Designing an intelligent flight computer that can account for air currents could also make flight less turbulent, and potentially improve our understanding and prediction of weather patterns.
- tonyarkles 10y ago
  There's also the pesky "refueling" bit. These birds run on fish; I don't think we've really designed effective ICE or fuel cells that run on fish yet.
  - walrus01 10y ago
    we've developed robots that will 'collect' biological matter (slugs) and ferment it into gases which can be used for electrical generation, but it's incredibly inefficient and likely not suited for aviation. http://archive.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/47156?currentPage=all http://archive.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/...
    - tonyarkles 10y ago
      > A prototype robot capable of hunting down over 100 slugs an hour and using their rotting bodies to generate electricity is being developed by engineers at the University of West England's Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory. That's both... disgusting and delightful!
  - Xylakant 10y ago
    Since the whole idea is that the flight pattern uses extremely little energy, solar cells would be an option.
charlessw 10y ago
Glider pilots have told me about using the heated air up drafts caused by large mall parking lots as a way to stay elevated. Amazing to think of all the air that is moving around us, and then using it to "bounce" from current to current.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  This suggests that more than a little bit of global warming is due to pavement.
  - vacri 10y ago
    You might be interested to read about Urban Heat Islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      Thanks. A roofing contractor told me once that putting a white reflective coating on flat roofs instead of the usual black tar would reduce the A/C bill by about 15%.
charlessw 10y ago
Glider pilots have told me about using the heated air up drafts caused by large mall parking lots as a way to stay elevated. Amazing to think of all the air that is moving around us, and then using it to "bounce" from current to current. It would be interesting to create a graph comparing an organism's weight versus passive distance traveled. Ie: a spider has low weight, but only travels 3,000 body lengths with a web as it's sail, versus this bird travels an amazing distance by using up drafts.

HillaryBriss 10y ago

Maybe unmanned drone gliders without any cargo, just some sensors. Of course, if they're anything like the frigate birds themselves, one of these gliders will eventually collide with a frigate bird. Then what? On second thought, just put sensors on some frigate birds and collect the data later, as this scientist is already doing. Sell the data to Google Earth. Split the profits with the birds.

cmontella 10y ago

:) This was exactly my research in gradschool. Sorry to self promote, but it's not often I get a chance to discuss my incredibly esoteric dissertation topic. I was part of a team working to get a UAV to perform a dynamic soaring maneuver, which allows an aircraft (or bird) to extract energy from wind gradients to support flight [1]. DS was first recognized in the albatross by Lord Rayleigh. Like the frigate bird in this artcle, the albatross is able to expend very little enegery while traveling great distances, thanks to its oceanic environment. Close to the ocean surface, friction between the wind and the water causes windspeed to slow. As you move up in altitude, windspeed increases. So you have this nice gradient that is always there for the albatross to take advantage of. The albatross locks its wings into place (using a big tendon sheath), and it performs successive climbing/diving maneuvers through this gradient, netting it kinetic energy at the end of each cycle. So my role in the project was the brains behind a soaring aircraft, which was being developed in tandem. I'm a little fuzzier on the specifics of how the aicraft was made, but it was a novel manufacturing process that allowed us to build very large, seamless carbon fiber wings [2]. As part of my work, I had to figure out how to find trajectories that would support flight, given an aircraft. I also had a formulation that would find an optimal aircraft as part of the solution. The key takeaways for the aircraft are very large wingspan, and also some heft to the airframe; you don't want the aircraft being too light, because most of the energy gain comes during the transfer between potential -> kinetic energy during the dive phase of the maneuver. Anyway, anyone really interested in the topic can take a look at our publications [3]. We looked at soaring in the jetstream, soaring in hurricanes, even reinforcement learning for a UAV to figure out how to soar better. [1] http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/future-flight-flight-becomes-perpetual http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/future-flig... [2] http://vader.cse.lehigh.edu/dynamicsoaring/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Finished-Wing21-1024x764.jpg http://vader.cse.lehigh.edu/dynamicsoaring/wp-content/upload... [3] http://www.dynamicsoaring.lehigh.edu/ http://www.dynamicsoaring.lehigh.edu/

giulianob 10y ago
It reminds me of how Mario flies in the Super Mario World ( http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/218714-super-mario-world-snes-screenshot-flying-with-a-cape.png http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/218714-super-mario-w... ) where he bobs up and down.