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Andean condor can fly for 100 miles without flapping wings
- clueless123 6y agoSome fun facts.. Andean Condors in Peru glide from 14'000 ft up in the andes of Pampa Galeras all way the down to sea level at the Guano islands in the coast of Paracas. All to get stuffed eating crushed sea lions babies carcases.. After eating , Condors can't take of from the ground by flapping.. they got to "hop" up a hill to be able to launch into the incoming air to get some altitude. Then they fly back up to 14'000ft by a combination of dynamic lift, thermals and wave induced lift when available. A few years ago, a group of top paraglider pilots tried to recreate their journey up the mountains, but it ended with both pilots pretty badly injured after encountering nasty turbulent winds on the mountain canyons.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago> The Andean condor has a 3-metre (10ft) wingspan and weighs up to 15kg (33lbs), making it the world’s heaviest soaring bird. With a wingspan this large and a weight this low, the Andean corridor must generate enough lift by itself. Tl;dr It's a biological aircraft.
- StavrosK 6y agoAren't aircraft mechanical birds, though?
- iso1631 6y agoI don't know any aircraft that propel themselves by moving wings.
- samvher 6y agoCheck out http://www.delfly.nl/ http://www.delfly.nl/ It's pretty small, but a very cool concept nonetheless.
- kitd 6y agoWow! never seen that before. That's incredible.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I don't know any aircraft that propel themselves by moving wings. Well, there are helicopters, of course, and—less common but more what you probably had in mind—ornithopters, both of which using moving—rotary in the first case, flapping in the second—wings.
- StavrosK 6y agoAs an aside, helicopter rotors are an ingenious design. The principle is brilliant.
- StavrosK 6y agoThey're called ornithopters, check this out: https://youtu.be/0E77j1imdhQ https://youtu.be/0E77j1imdhQ
- decafninja 6y agoDune! Sadly most of the depiction of 'thopters in Dune media have not been 'thopters but boring generic VTOLs. I think the only place where they actually had real bird-like 'thopters was the Dune RTS games.
- simple10 6y agoParaglider and hang glider pilots can also soar for hundreds of miles without power or flapping. Soaring birds like condors, turkey vultures, hawks, etc. use the same technique of turning in tight circles in rising air to increase altitude. Once cloud base is reached and the rising air stops, they glide significant distances to the next hillside with rising air. Whenever you see birds in the sky circling around the same spot together, it's because they're in rising air and using it to stay aloft.
- clueless123 6y agoFWIW, the estimated glide ratio of a South American Andean Condor is ~ 12:1 or about what a competition Paraglider does. (Or an old hang glider)
- ajuc 6y agoThere's thermals (a spot on the land that is warmer than the surroundings so the air rises there), and there's topography that causes rising air (for example when the wind blows at a face of a hill - the air has no choice but to go up). RC gliders can stay in air basically forever flying back and forth in rising air along a hillside. It's called slope-soaring and it's great fun.
- dmos62 6y ago> RC gliders can stay in air basically forever flying back and forth in rising air along a hillside. And there's been some effort to have autopilots do it automatically https://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/soaring.html https://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/soaring.html
- jojobas 6y agoSomewhat more impressively, albatrosses do that on the forward faces of waves, soaring for days far away from thermals and hills.
- tim333 6y agoThere's research that they use dynamic soaring more, getting energy from the different wind speeds at sea level and a bit above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMX2wCJga8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMX2wCJga8g
- speedgoose 6y ago~161km.
- aphroz 6y agoThank you
- unglaublich 6y agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-metric-converter https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/everything-me...
- speedgoose 6y agoThis extension encourage the use of non-metric units, and it looks like it's running a huge regular expression on every DOM node with text content for every page: https://github.com/m1l/Everything-Metric-Firefox/blob/master/contentscript.js https://github.com/m1l/Everything-Metric-Firefox/blob/master... I prefer to do a quick conversion and tell the others.
- iso1631 6y agoThe article says more than 100 miles, that's 1 significant figure, and likely somewhere in the 100-120 mile range. More than 160km is the appropriate conversion, and indeed what the article says, it's likely 160-200km. If I say it's 50km to somewhere, an appropriate conversion would be 30 miles, not 31.07 miles.
- speedgoose 6y agoPardon my French, but on encule un peu les mouches là. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enculer_les_mouches https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enculer_les_mouches
- starpilot 6y agoNo one cares about sig figs in mechanical engineering, which is what this is closest to. They only really matter in chemistry.
- burfog 6y agoI wonder how much it really saves. Unless there is some sort of bone oddity in the joint, the wings are not locked in place. The bird must still self-support via muscles. Try it. The relatively bird-like way is like a gymnast on a pair of rings, arms horizontal. Doing things upside-down, consider standing with outreached arms holding heavy objects. It'd be half your body weight at the arm midpoints, which due to leverage is roughly like a quarter of body weight in each hand. Even without any flapping, that is going to consume lots of energy.
- viraptor 6y agoThe birds are better built for it though. The keel in soaring birds is massive and not comparable to our weak chests. It's not even that annoying for them apparently - birds can sleep (kind of) while soaring as well.
- ephaeton 6y agodon't forget that the wings create lift, i.e., the body hangs between the wings, it's not the body that holds up the wings, it's the other way around.
- JoeSmithson 6y agoExactly, it's more like suspending yourself from your armpits
- burfog 6y agoNo, because of leverage. The air lifts all along the whole wing. On average, the air lifts from the middle. So it's more like suspending yourself from your elbows, with your arms out horizontal.
- ajuc 6y agoAlbatrosses apparently have some kind of a locking mechanism just for that. I would expect it in other soaring birds too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_flight#Basic_mechanics_of_bird_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_flight#Basic_mechanics_of...
- econcon 6y agoOnce you go up in air, larger wings means less air drag from wing tip turbulence.
- samvher 6y agoBird physics are really interesting. There's an excellent (and accessible) book called "The Simple Science of Flight" by Henk Tennekes (who is an expert in the study of turbulence) which I really enjoyed reading, highly recommend it.
- tetris11 6y agoRelated: Search Wikipedia for "boids"
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoLinked from the same article: Fight of the condor: Peru bull fiestas threaten future of rare Andean bird At a raucous mountain festival high in the Peruvian Andes, a brass band and booming loudspeaker herald the arrival of the most eagerly awaited spectacle. With the wings of an angel and the horns of a devil, the tonne of life that flaps and bucks and charges into the bullring at first resembles a strange mythological beast. Snorting and kicking up dust, the hybrid – a raging bull with a condor strapped to its back – strikes awe in a watching crowd as it thunders into the arena, then excitement as it repeatedly attempts to gore a matador. The closer the enraged beast comes to a lethal connection, the louder the cheers of "Olé!" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/29/condor-peru-bull-fight-andes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/29/condor-peru-bu... Olé, indeed.
- blatchcorn 6y agoSurely everyone knows this by now
- maest 6y agoThe relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- bergstromm466 6y agoWow such a great one, thanks for posting this. The relevant soundtrack: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M https://youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M
- glaberficken 6y ago>"The difference can be likened to pedalling a bicycle uphill versus coasting downhill, said Bret Tobalske, a bird flight expert" More like - coasting uphill!
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoAny land based analogies (that don't involve a geological time scale) are going to be bad because the land doesn't move whereas the air does and efficiently harnessing that movement to get gravitational potential energy which can be converted into motive power is how gliding things stay airborne
- Edward9 6y agoFly? Isn't it basically gliding?
- WJW 6y agoExcept for rockets, everything in the air is gliding. Some things are also powered, but that does not makes them glide less, just more.
- ajuc 6y agoBallons aren't gliding. Helicopters and quadcopters also aren't gliding.
- WJW 6y agoHelicopters and quadcopters provide lift through rotary wings, thereby gliding. Fair point about balloons though.
- ajuc 6y agoThat's like saying cars are moving by turning (because their wheels do that).
- meheleventyone 6y agoCars are moved by turning though. From the pistons driving the engine, through the gearbox and drivetrain to the wheels.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- starpilot 6y agoIn aviation, by definition gliding is unpowered flight, like coasting in a car. If you're doing performance calculations, there are different equations for gliding and powered flight.
- nickik 6y agoI highly suggest people watch this amazing video by Al Bowers a NASA scientist about how flight works for birds and planes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-dk1NpVNNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-dk1NpVNNI
- perilunar 6y agoThat was really interesting, thanks. For the pilots of HN out there, it's an interesting discussion about adverse yaw and why birds don't suffer from it, and what we can learn from them.
- 0xffff2 6y agoCalling Al Bowers "a NASA scientist" is like calling Jeff Bezos "some rich guy". Al was (now retired) the Chief scientist at Armstrong Flight Research Center, and has been a huge inspiration to hundreds (maybe thousands) of young interns over the years.
- pasticom 6y agoAmazing birds. I’d love to photograph one one day
- AQXt 6y ago100 miles? Saharan dust makes it all the way across the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and then moves up the USA east coast. https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/abnormally-large-dust-cloud-making-5000-mile-trek-across-atlantic/761708 https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/abnormally-large... And it does that without flapping wings!
- justaguyhere 6y agoOwls can fly almost in total silence, peregrine falcons can hit close to 250 mph, eagles can spot a tiny mouse from tens of thousands of feet... Mother nature is wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Suddenly I am feeling sad for sitting in front of a screen for 8-10 hours a day instead of being out and enjoying what nature has to offer :(
- phonypc 6y agoI think it's equally wonderful and terrifying that nature produced humans, capable of creating the screens we look at all day.
- hanniabu 6y agoBut think about the efficiencies and profits!
- missedthecue 6y agobecause without them, nature would be a constant foe rather than something we can enjoy.
- justaguyhere 6y agoMaybe humans are nature's biggest mistake!
- Izkata 6y agoLet's bump "terrifying" up a notch: Humans are persistence hunters, able to keep moving long after our prey has collapsed from exhaustion. This also describes zombies.
- gthtjtkt 6y agoDon't feel sad, you're increasing shareholder value! That's way better than anything nature has to offer.
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- DannyB2 6y agoI remember a story from the early 1980's about Steve Jobs. Steve asked, what is the most efficient animal in motion? People would give many answers. The correct answer was a condor in flight. A common wrong answer was a human being. Steve then pointed out that the human isn't even close. Not even in the running as far as efficiency of some other animals. But . . . if you give the human a bicycle, then the human absolutely cleans up in terms of efficiency. Steve wanted personal computers to be "a bicycle for the mind".
- netcan 6y agoIsn't the condor still much more efficient. How many calories does a cyclist need to travel 100 miles?
- viklove 6y ago> A common wrong answer was a human being. > if you give the human a bicycle, then the human absolutely cleans up in terms of efficiency. So the correct answer is a human being. Wait until Steve finds out about cars!
- firethief 6y agoCars are not an animal, nor are they energy-efficient compared to a condor. And Steve's dead.
- mgaw 6y agoHere is a recording showing Jobs telling the story: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c https://youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c
- loudmax 6y agoYoutube channel Moth Light Media did a video on the largest flying birds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bXov-Z2_9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bXov-Z2_9U Fossil evidence shows records of some truly enormous flying beasts. One of the topics of the video is how their existing relatives, the condors, make use of updrafts and air currents to avoid spending the energy to flap their wings. We're all familiar with the trope of vultures circling above a dying animal, but the circling may also be riding an updraft to maintain altitude without expending additional energy.
- starpilot 6y agoWing flap frequency varies inverse logarithmically with wing span in flying animals, see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeremy_Rayner2/publication/13904663/figure/fig3/AS:667179653558283@1536079433659/Wingbeat-frequency-versus-wing-length-For-comparison-the-slopes-of-two-predicted.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeremy_Rayner2/publicat... It's amazing how this carries over across species. Hummingbirds fly more like insects than eagles.
- jcun4128 6y agoThe low aspect ratio wings paired with the wing tip feathers to reduce wing tip vortices for birds of prey is pretty cool compared to the super high aspect ratio wings of Albatrosses.
- jmartrican 6y agoThe equivalent for a programmer I guess would be 100 hours without a single LOC. Whole still getting code to production.
- exikyut 6y agoHmm, who is more efficient: the programmer who writes 100 lines then deletes them after finding them all unnecessary, or the programmer who (as implied) doesn't need to write the lines in the first place?
- continuational 6y agoYeah, compile times can be rough!
- LanceH 6y agoM-x butterfly
- paul_milovanov 6y agoLaden or unladen?
- tempire 6y agoI first read this as "Andorian condor" and was intrigued, but a regular terran condor isn't quite as interesting.
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoThe article doesn't link to the original study, but I would be curious to know how long was the next longest flap-less flight. If the first one is 5 hours, and the next is 4.5, awesome, but if the next longest bird was not flapping for only 35 minutes, I would attribute this to equipment malfunction rather than some awesome paragliding bird. Science is fascinating.