Wind Tunnel Tests Confirm It: Bats Can Fly

[Nisse]

Read the article
http://www.scientificblogging.com/ne...t_bats_can_fly

[awdz]

Now if they could just prove that dragons can fly ;-)

[Takora Drakan]

Now if they could just prove that dragons can fly ;-)

I can prove that I can fly with a gnome in my stomach. *looks hungry at awdz*

[Tcei]

*wraps his claws around Awdz* No eating Awdz the Goddess of Klava! *growls*

[awdz]

*handily wields her [Sharpened Dragon Toothpick]* I don't usually get stuck in a dragon's stomach, I have lots of tools to help me work my way out.

[Pharcellus]

They had to go to the expense of a wind tunnel to prove that bats can fly?!?!

Gads, I just go outside at dusk, and I can see all the proof anyone needs that they can fly. They are really quite acrobatic about it, too, which erases ANY doubt about what they are doing up there in the air.

[awdz]

They had to go to the expense of a wind tunnel to prove that bats can fly?!?!

I think they just happened to have a lull in wind tunnel testing of vehicle designs and got bored with playing with paper airplanes and such in it, so they started tossing in things that could fly to see just how much wind the flying things could withstand. The research findings were just a side note.

[Oakleif]

And throwing flying things in came after some bright bulb decided to check the validity of the Jim Croce lyrics:

"And they say you don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off an 'ole Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim"

[tramsan]

I think it's more that while everyone obviously knows that bats can fly, we had never really understood the mechanics of it all. Anything that nature feels is worth using, we should probably at least investigate, since often it brings insights we can use in our own technology.

But hey, what do I know? It could just be the Swede in me sticking up for other Swedes, cooky as they may be.

[Nisse]

Yeah, it's not the can, it's the how. Like it was proven how insects like bumblebees fly a few years ago. Their wing motions are quite different from birds, they move them in figure eights in order to stay up.

[Dremora]

That's exactly what I was going to say even BEFORE I read that article. I mean jeeze people, scientists aren't stupid enough to think "durrrr I wonder if bats can fly durrrr". It's kind of worrying that some people think they are...

[Pharcellus]

Oh, I wouldn't say that.. Scientists have studied some pretty "Duurrrr" stuff before. Job security, needing to spend government grant money "productively", and all that rot.

So, while the thread title may be misleading and a bad summary, it is not beyond the pale for supposed "science" to be done to confirm the obvious.

[Pharcellus]

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/ar...9/Feature1.asp

Apparently not much new (aside from a slightly more detailed conclusion).

Bat wings (specifically the tips) are flexible as opposed to rigid, giving them extra lift and control that birds and insects don't have. The specific mechanism revealed in the latest test is sustained vortices on the leading edge of the wingtips created and manipulated due to the flexibility of the wingtips.

[Dremora]

Oh, I wouldn't say that.. Scientists have studied some pretty "Duurrrr" stuff before. Job security, needing to spend government grant money "productively", and all that rot.

So, while the thread title may be misleading and a bad summary, it is not beyond the pale for supposed "science" to be done to confirm the obvious.

Well yeah, I realize that. If I remember correctly there was even research (if you could even call it that) that people in prisons ACTUALLY DIDN'T LIKE TO BE IN PRISON GASP or something similar.

(to keep on topic.. kinda)
But a lot of times what seems to be obvious (bats/bumblebees can fly) isn't all that obvious when it comes down to exactly how it works.

[Pharcellus]

Oh, as for proving Dragons can fly, we probably could, if the atmosphere was much denser. Maybe not to a liquid state, but much higher atmospheric pressure.

Dragon flight in our world would require an extremely LARGE wingspan, much greater wing-size-to-body-size/weight ratio, or some radically different mechanical / locomotive structures (muscles/bones). The larger we are, the harder it is to initiate and sustain flight, and the energy expenditures would be enormous even then.

Wings overall have to be very strong limbs. They basically are doing continuous and repeated "pushups" for the Dragon's (or any other flying creature's) bulk. They have to gain purchase against the air mass to produce enough lift, spiking more on the downbeat than is lost due to movement / gravity on the upbeat in order to get off the ground at all. Gliding is an option, but Dragons wouldn't be Dragons if all we did was glide from mountaintop to ground, and then have to walk/climb all the way back up again.

It's a fascinating field of study, and there have been some interesting treatises on it, both from a speculative fictional story standpoint (Peter Dickinson's "The Flight of Dragons"), and from a more scientific evaluation standpoint ("Dragons!" Discovery channel TV show http://www.discoverychannelasia.com/dragons). There have been a lot of fanciful speculations about how Dragons could exist in our world, but very few still seem to find much grounding in hard science. Of course, if you take the approach that we are the way we are due to "magic", then it doesn't really matter how we could exist; we just do because the whole point of declaring something "magical" is basically saying that we are able to either a) break the known laws of physics at will, or b) utilize extremely advanced and complex "difficult to comprehend" means to do so. That is fine, I guess, but living creatures don't seem to have that luxury in the history of our natural world.

[C`gan]

I still like Discovery's conclusion on dragon flight.

One of the most efficient ways of providing lift AND fueling fire breath at the same time: internal bags of hydrogen and methane. With a little platinum chewing, you have fire.

[gopher65]

Bats: The Giant Bugs of the Skies!

[Dracana]

Our tax dollars at work folks

Next up: Can people breathe air?

[tramsan]

Actually, our tax crowns at work... It was a Swedish research project.

[awdz]

Bats: The Giant Bugs of the Skies!

Where's the traced Batman logo to go with it??