I'd like to ask you to look into the Prandtl Flying Wing. In that case I do believe birds are the solution and I also think it can solve one of the major issues that blended wing aircraft face which is the heavy reliance on fly by wire for stability without an elevator/stabaliser. It would also appear that the YB-49 instabilities would also have been resolved with this knowledge.
Correction: at 1:43, you said that an ornithopter is a flying machine that runs on only human power. That's not true, the word "ornithopter" means a flying machine that gets its thrust by flapping its wings. There have been human-powered planes that used propellers run by pedal power, and there have been planes that flapped their wings (ornithopters) that were powered by a regular engine.
Well Peter..++ for save Energy.. birds flap their wings going up.. then glide down resting.. then go up again..++. So the obvious question is.. To save fuel.. a airplane should not climb up and then glide down slowly some Km with his engines in idle... then climb back up slowly at half power.... and then down again??.... a computer should do that to find the best descent and ascent angles based on passengers comfort..and the maximum fuel economy ++++..you know so the fuel can be wasted by servers and endless lines of other devices for stream over and over the same song or watch meme's..+++...
Aircraft can also save several percent of their fuel by flying a little slower, whilst being mindful of stall speeds, etc. Another approach is to pick routes and altitudes with the best wind directions and velocities.
The military has drones in development to be controlled by a single aircraft, so why not for commercial air. It'll require additional sensors and processors for aircraft, but then the lead aircraft acts the brain and communicates via RF, like blutooth, to those riding its wake. Assuming they're all going to the same airport, arrival separation could be started during initial descent when they're 20-30 minutes out from landing.
I'm a glider pilot and fly regularly with birds in thermals. That other day I entered a thermal, a bird joined me. I orbited the bird as usual, and as the thermal got weaker, I left the thermal. The bird left the thermal right behind me and started "geese-ing" just behind my right wingtip. I noticed him following me, so I flew some slight turns and he followed the slight turns. He was apparently using my wake turbulence to save energy, for a couple of minutes. Or maybe he was just curious. Anyway, it was interesting to watch, I've never seen a bird following me before.
the concept of optifly is pretty cool. The separation would need to be managed such that following aircraft would require separation from their normal flight position rather than their optifly position so that they could resume normal separation. They would effectively have to "Crowhurst" their normal slot when in opti. If they are all connected, the ability to have closer proximity as the system isn't trying to detect something, it's actually in contact. If they can get the LIDAR to pickup uplift, I think it could be more stable being the wings are fixed. I think it's really exciting opportunity and super interesting reaearch
I've had a Bearded Vulture do the same behind my tandem paraglider here in Zermatt. Just once, but it was super interesting to have such a big bird hugging my wingtip
If we master wake-energy retrieval, I wonder if it could be used in emergency situations as well. For example, if a 4-engine airplane has a problem and is down to 1 or 2 engines, could another aircraft be diverted to take the lead position and make flying easier for the injured aircraft, providing more lift and/or distance to get to safety.
I was thinking that myself, and even if a twin loses one engine, if its paired , then in theory it wouldn't need to descend as far to stabilize, which is less fuel burn, but the other plane would have to descend as well...... just a thought. You lose the gain you get normally.
this sounds like a mentor pilot episode a decade from now. "when an expected wingman doesn't arrive in time" "the geese get beaten by Swiss cheese" plane crash or near miss due to tighter fuel calculations expecting a lead goose in a reduced power scenario. then the help doesn't arrive or gets diverted by weather.
@@bmxerkrantz I would assume that a plane having an emergency won't be allowed to use an assumed lead goose in their calculation until they actually have one in front of them.
My aircraft design professor, classmates, and I are working on a "gust load alleviation system" for aircraft that uses the same idea how a birds feathers actuate and change the camber of their wings when they hit a gust or are controlling their direction while gliding. We are hoping to eventually even have small scale models that implement this and work our way towards a full flight control system using these adaptive wings. The system we are using to do this is something called Pressure Adaptive Honeycomb. This system is basically a series of cells that run spanwise along the trailing edge of the wings that pressurize and depressurize to flex the wing up or down as needed to alleviate gusts or to control the aircraft. We will actually be presenting a paper on this in January at an AIAA conference! It's so exciting to see that the industry is working on many ways to copy mother nature's wings!
didn't a company already make this product, but with a control surface that automatically actuated on its own, which ended up actuating erroneously and crashing plane(s) with it installed, killing all on board, etc? so yours is different in that it is " a series of cells that run spanwise along the trailing edge of the wings that pressurize and depressurize to flex the wing up or down as needed to alleviate gusts or to control the aircraft" instead, correct?
I'm ornithologist and aviation fan so you can't imagine how excited I am about these news. That's not the first time I heard about owls inspiring wing design but, man, I wanna see it flying Hope we will see at least smaller aircrafts flying in flocks thats so beautiful
I enjoyed *screams in Swedish* Also I'm new to this kind of aviation nerdery. I've been ATC and CRM obsessed for a while (the *communication* and the culture in aviation is so fascinating to me), but how aircraft actually fly just never really caught my attention until your channels... The balance in science communication to get all the relevant info across without either leaving the audience behind or talking down to them is *hard* and your videos are some of the best at it I've come across. Thank you for all the hard work ❤ I'm looking forward to learning more about my surprise new obsession 😂
"Nobody knows how the birds adjust" Well, ask any cycling professional why they will always be in the perfect energy saving spot behind a leader in front of them (given they have the space in the pack) when wind direction changes. You feel it pretty dramatically if you´re NOT in the right spot and nobody wants to use more energy than needed.
Funny that you say that, because they don't, not always! Greylag geese fly in a perfect V. Barnacle geese? Are a just chaotic mess of a flock, like a peloton of amateurs on the first day of spring
@@TrulyMadlyShallowly Well, I guess Greylag are Cyclists the and Barnacle are Triathletes. When you go cycling with a Triathlete being a Cycling professional yourself, you go crazy. They never find the perfect energy saving spot and always complain that YOU are doing something wrong. That´s of course due to the fact that they always ride and compete on their own and not as a team.
I was thinking about race cars. But the mechanic is different, cars and cyclists are happy to run in a pocket of low air pressure because it reduces the drag. Planes and birds need that air to fly.
I love that you are taking a deep dive into the NATURE of flight. I can only speak for myself, but I believe anyone who loves & is fascinated by flight is intensely interested in its fundamental nature. I hope you continue this exploration into the nature of flight & not just the commercial aeronautic industry. Your channel will benefit exponentially I believe from this. Well done !!
I can see a form of autopilot with plane to plane communication being required to get the best out of GEESE - network the planes together when they enter a formation and they follow a kind of 'buddy' system. That way they can adjust for eachother's course corrections, communicate weather and LIDAR data between them, and also notify each other to increase separation if one plane detects a fault, excessive turbulence or an autopilot disconnect. Without the automation, is there an argument this increases pilot workload and fatigue on those long haul flights where there'd usually be many uneventful hours? I reckon the most complicated part once implemented will be the airlines deciding how they account for one plane getting a free boost to economy while another foots the whole bill... maybe have to calculate the % benefit per flight and establish a payback programme between each other or agree a rotation.
17:30 partially relevant experience I have in regards of "feeling" the air. I ride a fairly low power motorcycle (18kW and fairly draggy) The lower power nature of my bike means that at highway speeds any change in drag becomes immediately noticeable. So when I either want to maximize efficiency and or ride at higher speeds I put myself in the wake of a truck, van, SUV or car. Depending on wind conditions I may have to ride a fair bit to the side of the lane or get closer and to the side to be in the wake. (also interesting, driving in the wake of a bigger car like an SUV decreases fuel use by about 10-15%)
The issues with aircraft pairing sound awfully lot like the challanges we often face in programming, with having different systems (often built on fundamentally different technologies) able to communicate and cooperate with each other. I don't think the task will be insurmountable. If the fuel savings are substantial enough, and the will is there and minds open - it'll be done.
Your video contents are so useful 😊 I turn them on every night, my kids sleep while listening giving me the chance to do useful things like laundry. Thanks for your wonderful effort ❤
A friend took a speed photograph of a great blue heron's flight across the canal at his home. He printed all of the photographs and put them in a book in sequence. It was amazing to see that as the heron took off, flew, and landed each separate feather on the wings, tail and body reacted to the flight.
I have been binge watching your videos trying to catch up and I want to thank you so much for taking a moment of silence when discussing the loss of life. I am not affiliated with any religious beliefs but it's just respectful that you do that. You and your team are totally awesome!
Fascinating. As a programmer it reminds me of times when it's the paradigm I'm working with that makes the task so hard. I have a fabulous set of hammers, to use an old analogy, that are really hard to put down when a new task requires a brush - can't I just use a softer hammer? Perhaps the solution feels so hard precisely because we're trying to solve it with the only tools we think can solve it. Look at the clips you began with of attempting to do bird-things as a human. Didn't work well until we started doing human-things kinda-sorta like birds. But the bird-things were the inspiration and far more elegant. Now we're appreciating the nuance, brilliance and subtlety of bird-things overlooked for years. As the cyclists, ornithologists and glider pilots have mentioned it's really easy to get it when you're in the right place, the right mind-set.
Hey, small correction on ornithopters and LIDAR. Ornithopters work by flapping wings, regardless of where the mechanical energy comes from. LIDAR doesn't use radio waves like radar, it uses often infrared light in a laser to map out nearby features
@@alzukey they are both waves of light, indeed, but very different wavelengths. all infrared are light and all radio waves are light, but not all light is infrared and not all light is radio waves. also, no radio wave is infrared and no infrared is a radio wave. they are each their own independent (of each other) subsets of light.
One of the most interesting videos you have done, Petter. Birds perfected efficient flights after millions of years of trial and error. We try to do the same in a couple of decades.
Or they were designed that way from the beginning. If you think this all just evolved, you have more faith than I do, particularly when you look at the statistics of even just a small part of what is required. When you get past 10^49 it's just not possible.
Years ago, before Austin moved its main airport to Bergstrom, I was riding my bike down a road just west of I-35 in a quiet neighborhood that was right below the flight path of the old runstrip. I got startled out of my wits and almost crashed when a very loud noise echoed all around. After about half a minute, there was wind. I went back several times later, and there were several different features of this phenomenon. The most interesting to me was the collapsing of the wingtip vortices. That is my own term, but I don't actually completely know what's going on. Here's the sequence of events: 1) the aircraft passes overhead and lands. 2) some time after the plane passed over (about 30 seconds if I recall correctly, but I think it varied by aircraft type), a loud noise could be heard that generally followed the aircraft, but it wasn't linear. It followed the aircraft in a chaotic pattern, seeming to go back and forth. The sound also seemed to echo within the tubes formed by the wingtip vortices. 3) some time after the startling sound, the rush of air arrived as the downward rush of air from the plane reached ground level. I've tried a few times to experience the phenomenon after the airport moved, but I have a feeling I can't get to the right position (distance from the landing zone). Also, aircraft now generally have winglets now, and they didn't when I experienced this phenomenon.
Just reposted a vid on X that amazed me, it’s a Kestrel bird, flying stationary/hovering, in what looks like high wind, looking down, hunting. The body of the bird is moving & fluttering around in the wind, making constant adjustments. The head, is PERFECTLY stable & still. I mean it’s amazing, it looks magical, almost unreal. Having just discovered & become obsessed with your channel(s), i immediately thought, there must be some way this could help aviation if they could figure out how to adapt it into tech, & apply it. If an airplane could be as stable as that Kestrel’s head… might never have a crash again. Some chat GPT reply mentioned research has found these birds can keep their head still within 2 millimeters in any direction while hovering- to the naked untrained human eye, it appears perfectly still. I do wonder… how much airplanes will change in my lifetime, what they will look like in 10, 20, 30 years if I live that long. I guess the outward appearance won’t change much. But curious to see how drastically or not the tech will change in my lifetime & that I’m able to actually witness.
I'd suggest the wake turbulence is more due to the spanwise flow of air from under the wing to on top of the wing at the tip, less of the pressure differential in a two dimensional wing.
Petter your vids are more professional than the big end of town productions, an absolute credit to you and your team. looking forward to many years of your new found career.
A winglet is essentially a propeller blade, but instead of rotating in still air, the winglet stands still in rotating air, harvesting energy from the vortex and giving the wingtip a push forward. Also check out Albion Bowers work on the Prandl Wing.
During the Battle of Britain, military pilots would form a reverse delta formation (i.e. two aircraft in front, one damaged one in the back) to help the aircraft in trouble reach the friendly shore.
One time I saw an owl on a tree in the middle of the night. It kinda spread its wings out and dropped off the branch, I heard something squeal for a few seconds, and it flew away. But when it dropped out of the tree it was silent
did you ever wonder why, when you look at a flock of geese flying in a V-formation, one of the legs of the V is longer than the other? answer: 'cos it's got more geese in it.
15:50 6 tons of co2, i wish these companies would stop talking in "green talk" and just use words we understand, like what percent fuel savings is that? That is a cool concept, but tons of co2 isn't a measurement any of us understand.
@@jhoughjr1 Lifetime, hourly, yearly, what persons usage? CO2 is a gas, so 6 tons of it actually is a boatload! @volvo09 i did some googling and maths and came to a Amsterdam-New York flight producing about 175,5 ton of CO2. So 6tons saving would be about 3% which is significant enough to me. This is all based on google and just 3 sources, so please anyone take this with a grain of salt, or even proof me wrong.
Does it matter? Co2 is the result of burning jet fuel, it's the problem we are all worried about. A ton is a ton. less is better. I'll admit that some context, like how many tonnes get put out on an average flight would be nice, but they don't like talking about that as much. You could do the math yourself to find out how much Co2 is released from burning an amount of fuel, and then figure out the fuel savings.
Fun video they are always looking to reduce wingtip vortices with things like winglets so it was cool to see the research into Owls to try and develop this idea further. Can't wait to fly on the Owlbus A320.
Bird have a bunch of sensors attached to each individual feather. They are able to detect, actually feel the forces acting on them. Even torsion. Their nerve system adapted to calculating all the necessary muscle action literally on-the-fly. Aircraft will also need quite a lot of new sensors on the wings. Fuzzy logic in conjunction with properly thrained AI models will come handy.
I love this channel and love how passionate you are about aviation! I love learning about this subject and hope to always keep learning with an open mind. Every single flight is a brand new flight, an opportunity. :)
What a coincidence! I have just been preparing a lecture on biomimetics in aerospace, for which your videos have been fundamental for understanding. Thank you so much for your informative work!
That's pretty funny, i was talking about an idea like the Fello'Fly/Geese idea after watching an episode of Mythbusters about winds and streams. A kind of fly-highway, after discussing it with some commenters, i think we decided that it would be cumbersome and probably inefficient in one way or another and that only army formations would benefit from it, even though you don't really want to become a group of targets. Using jetstreams is probably still more easy and takes less planning or rerouting flights.
No matter how much things are explained to me i am forever enthralled by the magnificence of these massive metal birds with so much weight can just majestically take to the skies and move us from one destination to another! Forever in love with the thrill of flying❤❤❤
One of the potential issues I see with GEESE is the challenge it presents to CRM. Because now the flight crew is spread over two cockpits and belong to airlines which follow slightly different procedures.
I also add that on the barn owl wing, if you ever have a chance to hold a barn owl wing, you'll see that it has a comb structure facing forward which is key to silent flying
14:23 pretty significant is a massive understatement. The amount of engineering time to get specific fuel consumption down 5-10% will be a massive endeavour
Active boundary layer control has been around a long time. Used on jet fighters of 60s vintage to lower landing speed. Given the computational power at hand, this might need a revisit for airliners. Peter Garrison wrote in the 80s (?) FLYING of a Japanese plane that manipulated the BL. The plane flew level by extracting its energy from the air. The wing cooled the air as it passed thru, the heat energy released propelled the plane. The pilot listened to the BL thru wing embedded microphones and guided the plane to stay in the sweet spot. Now readers, I’m reciting something read 40 years past, keep this in mind. Unlike airline pilots, birds have brains. That is, brains directly connected to its wings. Stronger quicker feedback and response. Moreover a bird can warp and contort its wings…we’re stuck with flaps. Cheers
The first time I begun laughing loudly when you showed the pictures of those feathered airliners! Also, regarding wake energy retrieval - it made me think of a train in the sky which, if feasible, sounds like a very good idea...
Hey up peter this super cool, last Saturday saw the best migrating gease pattern ever was four or five Vs flying as one, bit like bomber command stuff from ww2. Penguins do something similar as one stands baring the brunt of artic wind and they swop, owl is a good bird to study as they glide so efficiently might even use grownd effects like that big russian sea plane. Can't remember name of fella that designed the spitfire but it came from his observations of birds (maybe gull's or cliff type's) man has only been flying for a microscopic time compared to nature
Birds do not have a rudder. All aircraft including fighter aircraft have rudders. Just to state the obvious, rudders add drag and show up on radar which is concerning particularly when making low-altitude military attacks. Yes, the rudder corrects yaw during banking turns, but birds correct for yaw by minor increases in wingtip drag on the wing on the inside of the turn. I just have to watch birds in my garden to see this. This is my registered design for an aircraft of the future.
Idk man, i only play dcs but i find rudders on fighters very useful especially in low speed maneuvers. Those things are less airplanes and more like absurdly strong engines with wings, maybe the birds aren't the best example to follow because i dont see any birds doing 9g turns.
@@zagijohan4572Which is why nature evolved birds with vertical stabilisers.🙄 If that means anything, we aren’t understanding tailless aircraft quite right.
The next video will be about, why aviation didn´t invent claws to snatch other planes from the sky. In all seriousness though, I love your videos, thank you!
The concept video of that Airbus is beautiful. Shame it wouldn't even look like that in real life but it very much evoked a bird of prey and I loved it.
The seagul is incredible to watch as theyare able to stretch right out to soar or bring their wings into a W shape for performance. When you watch sparrow hawks, they tweak their wingtips ever so slightly to make subtle changes in direction. Id love to have a pair of wings so I could fly all the time, without having to setup a glider or hop on a jump plane. With human bodyflight, theres many different ways to achieve the same 3D movement
I think geese fly in formation because of slipstream.Basically the bird in front creates a pocket behind it with less air to hit the bird behind, thus less drag for the bird behind , less energy required , less food required. How about the bird in front ,which fully hits the oncoming airflow? Well fun fact , the birds actually swap turns
19:45 you would think the best way to integrate most of this on the aircraft would be for the lead aircraft to take primary navigation and assume a certain amount of control over the following aircraft…
A study of the wandering albatross would be interesting. Very high aspect wings, can stay in the air for months at a time looking for food so efficiency is key
This seems to be actually really good idea. Taking into consideration aerodynamics is similar to hydrodynamics, riding in V formation is used in flatwater kayaking where followers catch the wave of lead kayaker and save a lot of energy, but same as flying geese, they need to adjust the direction and power output a lot (every stroke) to not lose the wave or crash others in formation. In group of 4 riding in “diamond” formation, the person in back can save the most energy. I believe using this technique in aviation should be possible. But in the age of autopilot and fly-by-wire, when pilot can’t “feel it” like geese, to constantly adjust the flight control surfaces and thrust to fly safely, I believe the only possible solution is communication between the planes for positional awereness and changes in direction, in combination with AI analysing data from sensors, but I believe in today’s world it is possible and if well implemented, fuel savings might be higher than now expected.
Having had some chances to see what you can do with implementing automated control loops in aviation it sometimes looks like straightup witchcraft so this should be comparatively easy, especially if you use it only in cruise and even more especially if the planes" autopilots can actually communicate. The technical issues here are absolutely solveable! CONOPS is the much bigger issue.
Birds also use bell shape lift distributions instead of elliptical lift distributions as airplanes. The wingtips are in effect the same thing as horizontal wingtips.
Regarding flapping, ornithopters from Dune come to mind. But what if those fictional ornithopters really use bird-like wing movements not for primary thrust, but as a coordinated control surface system? Combined with jets and possibly some adjustable exhaust ducting, maybe a "flapping" aircraft could make sense someday.
@@MentourNow one factor is geese routinely change leaders, since the leader is exerting the most energy. using a GEESE strategy to optimize long distance flying, would need to have a strategy to overcome the human "if I don't benefit, nobody benefits" tendency.
us bombers did this for years to save gas by flying in formation. there was occasionally collisions if i remember right but that was 1940s tech and hundreds of large planes sometimes trying to formation up in bad weather without radio
Go on a trip to Skellig Michael while the gannets are nesting. Not only do they have wings more like modern aircraft than other birds but they fly in lines of 7 to 12 birds a couple of metres above the wavetops, where it's really turbulent. The precision with which they do it is astonishing. Bring warm waterproof clothing...🙂
Also, formation flying of commercial flights is a data-heavy operation... Commercial jets already send a lot of information to ground stations for telemetry.... Now if they can share information with each other, and have the autopilots integrate this information, it would be ideal
It's not just airplanes. The way that the Kingfisher dives into water without a large splash inspired some of the bullet trains in train (as they frequently enter tunnels, creating a similar pressure wave). It seems the more we look to what has already been engineered in the world around us, the better our human designs become.
Not natural but still untapped: solar panels on the wings (ultra-thin ultra-light ones). The engines don't need to generate the electricity anymore so the fuel that this would have used is now saved. It could also reduce usage of the APU and/or reduce ground idle/taxi fuel consumption by temporarily turning the generators into motors helping to keep the engines spinning with less fuel. Solar panels also get a lot more efficient at altitude. Maybe even use the generators as motors at altitude, this may even increase max operating altitude etc. All this could have a cascading effect that further reduces fuel burn by secondary/tertiary effects.
Good luck producing relevant amounts of energy with solar panels on wings. And they are dead weight during nighttime no matter how light they are. And they would need to be very, very flexible and durable, because wings need to resist a lot of force and bend a lot. And would need a lot of care when cleaning them. And so on...
If interested, look up projects Solar Impulse 1+2. There is also a PBS documentary called The Impossible Flight about them. It should give you a good overview about the specific challenges for solar flight. I don't see it happening on commercial planes, even if only for recharging on board batteries.
Feathers also reduce drag, at least at the low speeds at which birds fly. Modern aircraft have smooth surfaces, which reduces the thickness of the boundary layer. I suggest that engineers should also be examining the flight characteristics of Bird's much larger, and therefore necessarily more efficient, relatives the extinct Pterosaurs. In particular how did their quite different plumage, pycnofibres, contribute to their aerodynamic advantage? Aviation has already adapted the other advantage, the reduction in landing gear. Pterosaurs, and Bats, have both massively reduced the musculature of their rear legs by depending primarily on the necessarily powerful wing muscles for takeoff and cushioning landings.
I see geese also practice wake formations on the riverout back. They’ll do it for hours off and on. I’ve wondered if they’re competing and testing each other, or if they’re just doing what they’re used to doing with no motivation.
Get an Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/mentournow It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌
I'd like to ask you to look into the Prandtl Flying Wing. In that case I do believe birds are the solution and I also think it can solve one of the major issues that blended wing aircraft face which is the heavy reliance on fly by wire for stability without an elevator/stabaliser. It would also appear that the YB-49 instabilities would also have been resolved with this knowledge.
Correction: at 1:43, you said that an ornithopter is a flying machine that runs on only human power. That's not true, the word "ornithopter" means a flying machine that gets its thrust by flapping its wings. There have been human-powered planes that used propellers run by pedal power, and there have been planes that flapped their wings (ornithopters) that were powered by a regular engine.
Well Peter..++ for save Energy.. birds flap their wings going up.. then glide down resting.. then go up again..++. So the obvious question is.. To save fuel.. a airplane should not climb up and then glide down slowly some Km with his engines in idle... then climb back up slowly at half power.... and then down again??.... a computer should do that to find the best descent and ascent angles based on passengers comfort..and the maximum fuel economy ++++..you know so the fuel can be wasted by servers and endless lines of other devices for stream over and over the same song or watch meme's..+++...
Aircraft can also save several percent of their fuel by flying a little slower, whilst being mindful of stall speeds, etc. Another approach is to pick routes and altitudes with the best wind directions and velocities.
The military has drones in development to be controlled by a single aircraft, so why not for commercial air. It'll require additional sensors and processors for aircraft, but then the lead aircraft acts the brain and communicates via RF, like blutooth, to those riding its wake. Assuming they're all going to the same airport, arrival separation could be started during initial descent when they're 20-30 minutes out from landing.
I'm a glider pilot and fly regularly with birds in thermals. That other day I entered a thermal, a bird joined me. I orbited the bird as usual, and as the thermal got weaker, I left the thermal. The bird left the thermal right behind me and started "geese-ing" just behind my right wingtip. I noticed him following me, so I flew some slight turns and he followed the slight turns. He was apparently using my wake turbulence to save energy, for a couple of minutes. Or maybe he was just curious. Anyway, it was interesting to watch, I've never seen a bird following me before.
What a unique experience ❤️
Amazing! Birds truly are master aviators.
the concept of optifly is pretty cool. The separation would need to be managed such that following aircraft would require separation from their normal flight position rather than their optifly position so that they could resume normal separation. They would effectively have to "Crowhurst" their normal slot when in opti. If they are all connected, the ability to have closer proximity as the system isn't trying to detect something, it's actually in contact. If they can get the LIDAR to pickup uplift, I think it could be more stable being the wings are fixed. I think it's really exciting opportunity and super interesting reaearch
Incredible!
I've had a Bearded Vulture do the same behind my tandem paraglider here in Zermatt. Just once, but it was super interesting to have such a big bird hugging my wingtip
there is always room to learn new tricks from nature
Engineers use biomimicry to an advantage
thank you ♥
Or in other words, the engineering involved in making birds is most worthy of careful study.
@@TheNewGreenIsBlue "making birds" ? What is meant by that im confused
@@JDR71326 Designing birds, if you prefer.
If we master wake-energy retrieval, I wonder if it could be used in emergency situations as well. For example, if a 4-engine airplane has a problem and is down to 1 or 2 engines, could another aircraft be diverted to take the lead position and make flying easier for the injured aircraft, providing more lift and/or distance to get to safety.
I was thinking that myself, and even if a twin loses one engine, if its paired , then in theory it wouldn't need to descend as far to stabilize, which is less fuel burn, but the other plane would have to descend as well...... just a thought. You lose the gain you get normally.
It would be landing at the nearest airport regardless, though
@@chukwudiilozue9171but there will be a larger window of error, and thats good
this sounds like a mentor pilot episode a decade from now.
"when an expected wingman doesn't arrive in time"
"the geese get beaten by Swiss cheese"
plane crash or near miss due to tighter fuel calculations expecting a lead goose in a reduced power scenario. then the help doesn't arrive or gets diverted by weather.
@@bmxerkrantz I would assume that a plane having an emergency won't be allowed to use an assumed lead goose in their calculation until they actually have one in front of them.
My aircraft design professor, classmates, and I are working on a "gust load alleviation system" for aircraft that uses the same idea how a birds feathers actuate and change the camber of their wings when they hit a gust or are controlling their direction while gliding. We are hoping to eventually even have small scale models that implement this and work our way towards a full flight control system using these adaptive wings. The system we are using to do this is something called Pressure Adaptive Honeycomb. This system is basically a series of cells that run spanwise along the trailing edge of the wings that pressurize and depressurize to flex the wing up or down as needed to alleviate gusts or to control the aircraft. We will actually be presenting a paper on this in January at an AIAA conference! It's so exciting to see that the industry is working on many ways to copy mother nature's wings!
Gust alleviation has been installed on Airbus aircraft for the last 25 years…….
didn't a company already make this product, but with a control surface that automatically actuated on its own, which ended up actuating erroneously and crashing plane(s) with it installed, killing all on board, etc? so yours is different in that it is " a series of cells that run spanwise along the trailing edge of the wings that pressurize and depressurize to flex the wing up or down as needed to alleviate gusts or to control the aircraft" instead, correct?
I mean the word Aviation comes from the latin Avis meaning bird. Birds aren't changing aviation. They ARE aviation.
Excellent point!
They were nature's third big success at sustained macroscopic flight, and not necessarily the best! We just like them best. Perhaps they are tastiest.
Portuguese for bird: "Ave" ( read: "ahv.")
All laws come from God.
@mweb1 Interesting take on the subject, but also a shockingly depressing thought.
I'm ornithologist and aviation fan so you can't imagine how excited I am about these news. That's not the first time I heard about owls inspiring wing design but, man, I wanna see it flying
Hope we will see at least smaller aircrafts flying in flocks thats so beautiful
Can the experience of display aircraft teams such as the Red Arrows be used?
I enjoyed *screams in Swedish*
Also I'm new to this kind of aviation nerdery. I've been ATC and CRM obsessed for a while (the *communication* and the culture in aviation is so fascinating to me), but how aircraft actually fly just never really caught my attention until your channels... The balance in science communication to get all the relevant info across without either leaving the audience behind or talking down to them is *hard* and your videos are some of the best at it I've come across.
Thank you for all the hard work ❤ I'm looking forward to learning more about my surprise new obsession 😂
"Nobody knows how the birds adjust" Well, ask any cycling professional why they will always be in the perfect energy saving spot behind a leader in front of them (given they have the space in the pack) when wind direction changes. You feel it pretty dramatically if you´re NOT in the right spot and nobody wants to use more energy than needed.
Interesting comparison!
Funny that you say that, because they don't, not always! Greylag geese fly in a perfect V. Barnacle geese? Are a just chaotic mess of a flock, like a peloton of amateurs on the first day of spring
@@TrulyMadlyShallowly Well, I guess Greylag are Cyclists the and Barnacle are Triathletes. When you go cycling with a Triathlete being a Cycling professional yourself, you go crazy. They never find the perfect energy saving spot and always complain that YOU are doing something wrong. That´s of course due to the fact that they always ride and compete on their own and not as a team.
That’s so cool! I never knew that
I was thinking about race cars. But the mechanic is different, cars and cyclists are happy to run in a pocket of low air pressure because it reduces the drag. Planes and birds need that air to fly.
I’ve never heard of having to ascend or descend 300ft when flying an offset for weather before. Learning from you every video!
I shared it because I am trying to get a few aviation friends to watch you so we can discuss your videos .
Thank you!
I love that you are taking a deep dive into the NATURE of flight. I can only speak for myself, but I believe anyone who loves & is fascinated by flight is intensely interested in its fundamental nature. I hope you continue this exploration into the nature of flight & not just the commercial aeronautic industry. Your channel will benefit exponentially I believe from this. Well done !!
I can see a form of autopilot with plane to plane communication being required to get the best out of GEESE - network the planes together when they enter a formation and they follow a kind of 'buddy' system. That way they can adjust for eachother's course corrections, communicate weather and LIDAR data between them, and also notify each other to increase separation if one plane detects a fault, excessive turbulence or an autopilot disconnect.
Without the automation, is there an argument this increases pilot workload and fatigue on those long haul flights where there'd usually be many uneventful hours?
I reckon the most complicated part once implemented will be the airlines deciding how they account for one plane getting a free boost to economy while another foots the whole bill... maybe have to calculate the % benefit per flight and establish a payback programme between each other or agree a rotation.
The serrated owl feather concept could be also a gamechanger for helicopters and their vortex ring problem.
17:30 partially relevant experience I have in regards of "feeling" the air. I ride a fairly low power motorcycle (18kW and fairly draggy)
The lower power nature of my bike means that at highway speeds any change in drag becomes immediately noticeable.
So when I either want to maximize efficiency and or ride at higher speeds I put myself in the wake of a truck, van, SUV or car. Depending on wind conditions I may have to ride a fair bit to the side of the lane or get closer and to the side to be in the wake.
(also interesting, driving in the wake of a bigger car like an SUV decreases fuel use by about 10-15%)
The issues with aircraft pairing sound awfully lot like the challanges we often face in programming, with having different systems (often built on fundamentally different technologies) able to communicate and cooperate with each other.
I don't think the task will be insurmountable. If the fuel savings are substantial enough, and the will is there and minds open - it'll be done.
Hello from a fellow developer and aviation enthusiast.
ICAO will possibly develop some data protocol for such task.
Your video contents are so useful 😊
I turn them on every night, my kids sleep while listening giving me the chance to do useful things like laundry.
Thanks for your wonderful effort ❤
8:43 Nobody effortlessly transcends into nor returns from commercials as efficiently as Petter.
1:42 Quick correction - an ornithopter isn't the name for a human-powered aircraft, it's the name for an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings.
Good catch. Spot on. What do you call human powered flight? Yes i know i could google it. But that’s boring
@CharlMarais247 Literally no idea lol. That's why I didn't include it in my comment!
@@CharlMarais247 are there any? I'm picturing a hang glider fitted with a pedal operated prop, but I don't know of any that exist.
@ I've seen it! It's real. But does not look easy brother. One hell of a workout.
A friend took a speed photograph of a great blue heron's flight across the canal at his home. He printed all of the photographs and put them in a book in sequence. It was amazing to see that as the heron took off, flew, and landed each separate feather on the wings, tail and body reacted to the flight.
I have been binge watching your videos trying to catch up and I want to thank you so much for taking a moment of silence when discussing the loss of life. I am not affiliated with any religious beliefs but it's just respectful that you do that. You and your team are totally awesome!
"Is there an untapped natural design we should be looking at?"
Dynamic soaring! That's only for UAVs though I guess.
I love the idea of jet airliners flying in formation, dropping out to land and joining after take off. An idea well worth pursuing vigorously.
Fascinating. As a programmer it reminds me of times when it's the paradigm I'm working with that makes the task so hard. I have a fabulous set of hammers, to use an old analogy, that are really hard to put down when a new task requires a brush - can't I just use a softer hammer? Perhaps the solution feels so hard precisely because we're trying to solve it with the only tools we think can solve it. Look at the clips you began with of attempting to do bird-things as a human. Didn't work well until we started doing human-things kinda-sorta like birds. But the bird-things were the inspiration and far more elegant. Now we're appreciating the nuance, brilliance and subtlety of bird-things overlooked for years. As the cyclists, ornithologists and glider pilots have mentioned it's really easy to get it when you're in the right place, the right mind-set.
Great video, would love to see more about formation flying
Man. he's the best Narrator in aviation fields so far know by me with great Script writing skills a very informative and engaging kudos.....!
Hey, small correction on ornithopters and LIDAR.
Ornithopters work by flapping wings, regardless of where the mechanical energy comes from.
LIDAR doesn't use radio waves like radar, it uses often infrared light in a laser to map out nearby features
If you wanna be really technical, infrared and radio waves are the same thing, its just a semantic definition that differentiates them haha.
@@alzukey they are both waves of light, indeed, but very different wavelengths.
all infrared are light and all radio waves are light, but not all light is infrared and not all light is radio waves.
also, no radio wave is infrared and no infrared is a radio wave.
they are each their own independent (of each other) subsets of light.
I hear him saying that lidar is infrared light so what are you correcting?
One of the most interesting videos you have done, Petter. Birds perfected efficient flights after millions of years of trial and error. We try to do the same in a couple of decades.
Or they were designed that way from the beginning. If you think this all just evolved, you have more faith than I do, particularly when you look at the statistics of even just a small part of what is required. When you get past 10^49 it's just not possible.
Years ago, before Austin moved its main airport to Bergstrom, I was riding my bike down a road just west of I-35 in a quiet neighborhood that was right below the flight path of the old runstrip. I got startled out of my wits and almost crashed when a very loud noise echoed all around. After about half a minute, there was wind. I went back several times later, and there were several different features of this phenomenon. The most interesting to me was the collapsing of the wingtip vortices. That is my own term, but I don't actually completely know what's going on. Here's the sequence of events: 1) the aircraft passes overhead and lands. 2) some time after the plane passed over (about 30 seconds if I recall correctly, but I think it varied by aircraft type), a loud noise could be heard that generally followed the aircraft, but it wasn't linear. It followed the aircraft in a chaotic pattern, seeming to go back and forth. The sound also seemed to echo within the tubes formed by the wingtip vortices. 3) some time after the startling sound, the rush of air arrived as the downward rush of air from the plane reached ground level.
I've tried a few times to experience the phenomenon after the airport moved, but I have a feeling I can't get to the right position (distance from the landing zone). Also, aircraft now generally have winglets now, and they didn't when I experienced this phenomenon.
Bird is the word
“Put a bird on it”.
Haven't you heard about the bird?
Just reposted a vid on X that amazed me, it’s a Kestrel bird, flying stationary/hovering, in what looks like high wind, looking down, hunting. The body of the bird is moving & fluttering around in the wind, making constant adjustments. The head, is PERFECTLY stable & still. I mean it’s amazing, it looks magical, almost unreal. Having just discovered & become obsessed with your channel(s), i immediately thought, there must be some way this could help aviation if they could figure out how to adapt it into tech, & apply it. If an airplane could be as stable as that Kestrel’s head… might never have a crash again. Some chat GPT reply mentioned research has found these birds can keep their head still within 2 millimeters in any direction while hovering- to the naked untrained human eye, it appears perfectly still.
I do wonder… how much airplanes will change in my lifetime, what they will look like in 10, 20, 30 years if I live that long. I guess the outward appearance won’t change much. But curious to see how drastically or not the tech will change in my lifetime & that I’m able to actually witness.
I'd suggest the wake turbulence is more due to the spanwise flow of air from under the wing to on top of the wing at the tip, less of the pressure differential in a two dimensional wing.
Probably one of my favourite videos Mentour!! Many thansk
Petter your vids are more professional than the big end of town productions, an absolute credit to you and your team. looking forward to many years of your new found career.
A winglet is essentially a propeller blade, but instead of rotating in still air, the winglet stands still in rotating air, harvesting energy from the vortex and giving the wingtip a push forward. Also check out Albion Bowers work on the Prandl Wing.
During the Battle of Britain, military pilots would form a reverse delta formation (i.e. two aircraft in front, one damaged one in the back) to help the aircraft in trouble reach the friendly shore.
One time I saw an owl on a tree in the middle of the night. It kinda spread its wings out and dropped off the branch, I heard something squeal for a few seconds, and it flew away. But when it dropped out of the tree it was silent
This video shows how stupid I can be! When I saw the title, I simply thought it was going to be about how to stop birds hitting a plane's engines!
I can see how that could happen!
space lasers???
Boy you ARE stupid (J.K.!)
My exact thought 😂
Just put netting in front of the engine i know it will prob break when the bird hits but ik will reduce the demage
did you ever wonder why, when you look at a flock of geese flying in a V-formation, one of the legs of the V is longer than the other?
answer:
'cos it's got more geese in it.
I came to the comments to tell the same joke.
Laughs aside, I would not be surprised if an uneven formation were optimal.
Lambda formation
Eventually the planes will scream at people and chase them off their territory.
Something something stuka scream
or steal your food
15:50 6 tons of co2, i wish these companies would stop talking in "green talk" and just use words we understand, like what percent fuel savings is that? That is a cool concept, but tons of co2 isn't a measurement any of us understand.
We dont have any intuition for it. If i recall six tons aint a lot overall compared to a persons usage
Its rughly 2 tons of fuel. (1kg Fuel = 3.15kg CO2).
@@jhoughjr1 Lifetime, hourly, yearly, what persons usage? CO2 is a gas, so 6 tons of it actually is a boatload!
@volvo09 i did some googling and maths and came to a Amsterdam-New York flight producing about 175,5 ton of CO2. So 6tons saving would be about 3% which is significant enough to me.
This is all based on google and just 3 sources, so please anyone take this with a grain of salt, or even proof me wrong.
@@wolfijenne thank you, so that's like 1 or 2% of a trans Atlantic trip based on my limited knowledge of aircraft fuel capacity.
Does it matter? Co2 is the result of burning jet fuel, it's the problem we are all worried about. A ton is a ton. less is better. I'll admit that some context, like how many tonnes get put out on an average flight would be nice, but they don't like talking about that as much. You could do the math yourself to find out how much Co2 is released from burning an amount of fuel, and then figure out the fuel savings.
Can we get a list of Aviation Startups to lookout for which are innovating in routing, nagivation software & other things?
Fun video they are always looking to reduce wingtip vortices with things like winglets so it was cool to see the research into Owls to try and develop this idea further. Can't wait to fly on the Owlbus A320.
Bird have a bunch of sensors attached to each individual feather. They are able to detect, actually feel the forces acting on them. Even torsion. Their nerve system adapted to calculating all the necessary muscle action literally on-the-fly. Aircraft will also need quite a lot of new sensors on the wings. Fuzzy logic in conjunction with properly thrained AI models will come handy.
Birds indeed have good sensory perception, my chickens can hear a cheese packet opening from miles.
Birdwatching goes both ways 👦🏼 📹 🐦
Guy, your new video series are getting more and more interesting, thank you for awesome contents!
I love this channel and love how passionate you are about aviation! I love learning about this subject and hope to always keep learning with an open mind. Every single flight is a brand new flight, an opportunity. :)
What a fascinating video. I learn something new every time you post Petter. Thank you 👏
My pleasure!
I’m a fan of of birds and I love your videos, so I was waiting for this one to happen! Fantastic!
What a coincidence! I have just been preparing a lecture on biomimetics in aerospace, for which your videos have been fundamental for understanding. Thank you so much for your informative work!
I hope it helped!
That's pretty funny, i was talking about an idea like the Fello'Fly/Geese idea after watching an episode of Mythbusters about winds and streams.
A kind of fly-highway, after discussing it with some commenters, i think we decided that it would be cumbersome and probably inefficient in one way or another and that only army formations would benefit from it, even though you don't really want to become a group of targets.
Using jetstreams is probably still more easy and takes less planning or rerouting flights.
That Eagle Jet animation was AWESOME.
No matter how much things are explained to me i am forever enthralled by the magnificence of these massive metal birds with so much weight can just majestically take to the skies and move us from one destination to another! Forever in love with the thrill of flying❤❤❤
One of the potential issues I see with GEESE is the challenge it presents to CRM. Because now the flight crew is spread over two cockpits and belong to airlines which follow slightly different procedures.
I also add that on the barn owl wing, if you ever have a chance to hold a barn owl wing, you'll see that it has a comb structure facing forward which is key to silent flying
14:23 pretty significant is a massive understatement. The amount of engineering time to get specific fuel consumption down 5-10% will be a massive endeavour
This was such an enjoyable episode! Also, congrats on opening Mentour Pilot channels dubbed in German, Spanish and French 👏
Active boundary layer control has been around a long time. Used on jet fighters of 60s vintage to lower landing speed. Given the computational power at hand, this might need a revisit for airliners.
Peter Garrison wrote in the 80s (?) FLYING of a Japanese plane that manipulated the BL. The plane flew level by extracting its energy from the air. The wing cooled the air as it passed thru, the heat energy released propelled the plane. The pilot listened to the BL thru wing embedded microphones and guided the plane to stay in the sweet spot. Now readers, I’m reciting something read 40 years past, keep this in mind.
Unlike airline pilots, birds have brains. That is, brains directly connected to its wings. Stronger quicker feedback and response. Moreover a bird can warp and contort its wings…we’re stuck with flaps. Cheers
Another fascinating review of aviation developments. Thanks, Petter 🙂
The owl feathers is an interesting one. I could see airliner wings gaining serrated rear edges, just like some engine nacelles have now.
Owls are amazing, they are totally silent. We can learn so much from nature!
The 777-X with flapping wings is a nice imagination!😅 - Thank you very much for this again very interesting and informative Video!🙂👍
The first time I begun laughing loudly when you showed the pictures of those feathered airliners!
Also, regarding wake energy retrieval - it made me think of a train in the sky which, if feasible, sounds like a very good idea...
Hey up peter this super cool, last Saturday saw the best migrating gease pattern ever was four or five Vs flying as one, bit like bomber command stuff from ww2. Penguins do something similar as one stands baring the brunt of artic wind and they swop, owl is a good bird to study as they glide so efficiently might even use grownd effects like that big russian sea plane. Can't remember name of fella that designed the spitfire but it came from his observations of birds (maybe gull's or cliff type's) man has only been flying for a microscopic time compared to nature
That barn owl is so pretty
I love the german word for wake turbulences: Wirbelschleppe. It has something poetic 😊
I find it amusing that cargo ships are moving back towards wind-powered sails and now we're talking birds inspiring planes 😂
Ornithopter: noun, a machine designed to achieve flight by means of flapping wings.
Birds do not have a rudder. All aircraft including fighter aircraft have rudders. Just to state the obvious, rudders add drag and show up on radar which is concerning particularly when making low-altitude military attacks. Yes, the rudder corrects yaw during banking turns, but birds correct for yaw by minor increases in wingtip drag on the wing on the inside of the turn. I just have to watch birds in my garden to see this. This is my registered design for an aircraft of the future.
That's how flying wings like the B-2 stealth bombers control yaw.
Idk man, i only play dcs but i find rudders on fighters very useful especially in low speed maneuvers.
Those things are less airplanes and more like absurdly strong engines with wings, maybe the birds aren't the best example to follow because i dont see any birds doing 9g turns.
Rudders are more efficient, more structurally sound, less complex, and better for maneuvering.
@@zagijohan4572Which is why nature evolved birds with vertical stabilisers.🙄 If that means anything, we aren’t understanding tailless aircraft quite right.
The next video will be about, why aviation didn´t invent claws to snatch other planes from the sky.
In all seriousness though, I love your videos, thank you!
The efficiency of nature is hard to beat!
Dude. What are you talking about. Birds aren’t real.
#separationofchurchandstate 🇺🇸
Spies. They’re all spies. 😂
OK!
😂
Hans Wormhat, is it you? 😂
The concept video of that Airbus is beautiful. Shame it wouldn't even look like that in real life but it very much evoked a bird of prey and I loved it.
a good example for the feather in aviation would also be the A380s ailerons, they are split for load alleviation during gusts
The seagul is incredible to watch as theyare able to stretch right out to soar or bring their wings into a W shape for performance. When you watch sparrow hawks, they tweak their wingtips ever so slightly to make subtle changes in direction. Id love to have a pair of wings so I could fly all the time, without having to setup a glider or hop on a jump plane. With human bodyflight, theres many different ways to achieve the same 3D movement
How high do the geese fly in formation? And what’s their speed? Do these kinds of differences make it harder to adapt their techniques?
I think geese fly in formation because of slipstream.Basically the bird in front creates a pocket behind it with less air to hit the bird behind, thus less drag for the bird behind , less energy required , less food required.
How about the bird in front ,which fully hits the oncoming airflow? Well fun fact , the birds actually swap turns
19:45 you would think the best way to integrate most of this on the aircraft would be for the lead aircraft to take primary navigation and assume a certain amount of control over the following aircraft…
Great content, very refreshing to learn a bit of science rather than disaster always 😊. Thank you!
A study of the wandering albatross would be interesting. Very high aspect wings, can stay in the air for months at a time looking for food so efficiency is key
This seems to be actually really good idea. Taking into consideration aerodynamics is similar to hydrodynamics, riding in V formation is used in flatwater kayaking where followers catch the wave of lead kayaker and save a lot of energy, but same as flying geese, they need to adjust the direction and power output a lot (every stroke) to not lose the wave or crash others in formation. In group of 4 riding in “diamond” formation, the person in back can save the most energy.
I believe using this technique in aviation should be possible. But in the age of autopilot and fly-by-wire, when pilot can’t “feel it” like geese, to constantly adjust the flight control surfaces and thrust to fly safely, I believe the only possible solution is communication between the planes for positional awereness and changes in direction, in combination with AI analysing data from sensors, but I believe in today’s world it is possible and if well implemented, fuel savings might be higher than now expected.
The autopilots will have to "talk" to each other, for sure!
Having had some chances to see what you can do with implementing automated control loops in aviation it sometimes looks like straightup witchcraft so this should be comparatively easy, especially if you use it only in cruise and even more especially if the planes" autopilots can actually communicate. The technical issues here are absolutely solveable! CONOPS is the much bigger issue.
Birds also use bell shape lift distributions instead of elliptical lift distributions as airplanes. The wingtips are in effect the same thing as horizontal wingtips.
Them Cobra-Ducks are no joke😂
Regarding flapping, ornithopters from Dune come to mind. But what if those fictional ornithopters really use bird-like wing movements not for primary thrust, but as a coordinated control surface system? Combined with jets and possibly some adjustable exhaust ducting, maybe a "flapping" aircraft could make sense someday.
there is always room to learn new tricks from nature. whether the tricks will do what we want them to do is another question.
True
@@MentourNow one factor is geese routinely change leaders, since the leader is exerting the most energy. using a GEESE strategy to optimize long distance flying, would need to have a strategy to overcome the human "if I don't benefit, nobody benefits" tendency.
us bombers did this for years to save gas by flying in formation. there was occasionally collisions if i remember right but that was 1940s tech and hundreds of large planes sometimes trying to formation up in bad weather without radio
I love this subject!!! Bird flight is so interesting !!!
Im always amazed with the agility of small birds.
Go on a trip to Skellig Michael while the gannets are nesting. Not only do they have wings more like modern aircraft than other birds but they fly in lines of 7 to 12 birds a couple of metres above the wavetops, where it's really turbulent. The precision with which they do it is astonishing. Bring warm waterproof clothing...🙂
Utterly fascinating, thank you!
I think an even better weight-saving idea is the half-wing design in the clip throughout the video!
Also, formation flying of commercial flights is a data-heavy operation... Commercial jets already send a lot of information to ground stations for telemetry.... Now if they can share information with each other, and have the autopilots integrate this information, it would be ideal
Wow! This was cool...Thank you
It's not just airplanes. The way that the Kingfisher dives into water without a large splash inspired some of the bullet trains in train (as they frequently enter tunnels, creating a similar pressure wave). It seems the more we look to what has already been engineered in the world around us, the better our human designs become.
I loved the virtual Boeing 737 course, great fun and definitely worth doing. Take your simulated flying to a professional level with Ben and Petter.
Love the profile of the B2
An umbrella nickname for the NG split scimitar winglets and the MAX AT winglets is “split feather winglets”
That livery is lit 🔥
Not natural but still untapped: solar panels on the wings (ultra-thin ultra-light ones). The engines don't need to generate the electricity anymore so the fuel that this would have used is now saved. It could also reduce usage of the APU and/or reduce ground idle/taxi fuel consumption by temporarily turning the generators into motors helping to keep the engines spinning with less fuel. Solar panels also get a lot more efficient at altitude. Maybe even use the generators as motors at altitude, this may even increase max operating altitude etc. All this could have a cascading effect that further reduces fuel burn by secondary/tertiary effects.
Good luck producing relevant amounts of energy with solar panels on wings. And they are dead weight during nighttime no matter how light they are. And they would need to be very, very flexible and durable, because wings need to resist a lot of force and bend a lot. And would need a lot of care when cleaning them. And so on...
If interested, look up projects Solar Impulse 1+2. There is also a PBS documentary called The Impossible Flight about them. It should give you a good overview about the specific challenges for solar flight.
I don't see it happening on commercial planes, even if only for recharging on board batteries.
Feathers also reduce drag, at least at the low speeds at which birds fly. Modern aircraft have smooth surfaces, which reduces the thickness of the boundary layer.
I suggest that engineers should also be examining the flight characteristics of Bird's much larger, and therefore necessarily more efficient, relatives the extinct Pterosaurs. In particular how did their quite different plumage, pycnofibres, contribute to their aerodynamic advantage? Aviation has already adapted the other advantage, the reduction in landing gear. Pterosaurs, and Bats, have both massively reduced the musculature of their rear legs by depending primarily on the necessarily powerful wing muscles for takeoff and cushioning landings.
I see geese also practice wake formations on the riverout back. They’ll do it for hours off and on. I’ve wondered if they’re competing and testing each other, or if they’re just doing what they’re used to doing with no motivation.