Are Drones That Flap Their Wings Better?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- In this video I show you how a plane and a bird fly with similar but different mechanisms.
The Magic of Bird Flight with David Lentink:
• The Magic of Bird Flig...
Owls flying through bubbles: journals.biolo...
Shop the Action Lab Science Gear here: theactionlab.com/
Checkout my experiment book: amzn.to/2Wf07x1
Twitter: / theactionlabman
Facebook: / theactionlabofficial
Instagram: / therealactionlab
Snap: / 426771378288640
Tik Tok: / theactionlabshorts
You're the last person I'd expect to make a Skyrim joke. Good job catching me off guard
ikrrr
Really? What makes you think he wouldn’t be a gamer?
A mechanical Bird flying in front of a mountain range.
Strong HORIZON vibes over here!
Why? He's a fellow nerd.
LAMOOO I thought I was watching something like Nile Green but Action Lab
the shots of the owl flying through the helium bubbles was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool
I was glad that he replayed it so many times, I could watch that loop for hours I stg
It gets scary when you think about how Blackholes consume everything around it in the same way
I wonder if the owl got a buzz lol
Action Lab: Bird.
My Eyes: Bug.
My Brain: Bug.
bug.
Bug
At first I thought it looks like dragonfly.
Giant MF'n bug...!
I think the big breakthrough that aircraft engineers came up with was that they needed to produce multiple specialized air foils to do all that a bird can accomplish with its flexible organic wings. They couldn't design a mobile flapping structure that was sturdy enough to stand up to all the various forces it would endure, so they split it up between a fixed solid wing to hold most of the weight, smaller wings that could be manipulated to steer, and a third set that could provide thrust by spinning in a vertical circle instead of trying to reciprocate.
Imagine catching a transpacific redeye on a "mobile flapping structure"
That's an interesting way to put it. They just added more wings to the wings...
For supersonic flight research shows perpendicular wings are better than parallel. Malleable control surfaces could help with that also.
@@hpensive what are perpendicular wings?
@@user-rs1fo2dd9b There just set at an age to be exact but it looks completely opposite to what you would think works.
Another big thing to realise about birds is a lot of the body movement is also to keep the head stable - I've never properly researched it but I reckon that stability is key in the brain being able to process the environment and to make adjustments for controlled flight.
Even when pigeons walk, their head stays stationary, their body moves forward leaving the head beyjnd, then the head snaps forward and locks in place ahead of the body again as the body steps forward.
The hummingbird clip shows this fascinating behaviour really nicely.
That's because birds don't have muscles to turn eyeballs or to dampen movement, so they need to keep head stable to see clearly
@@jakubpollak2067 That's fascinating, I never knew that. Thanks 👍
@@jakubpollak2067*most birds don’t move their eyes
A few do. And some move them very little within their orbits. They just don’t have the same level of ocular muscles as mammals.
Hawks, for instance, can shift their eyes, as is necessary for binocular and stereoptic vision. Like most predator birds (raptors), their eyes are more forward facing.
Prey birds (like pigeons) have side facing eyes and no binocular vision. But their field of vision is remarkable, and necessary given the need to see what’s sneaking up on them. There are even some birds who essentially have 360 vision, at least in terms of detecting movement.
Because, y’know, stuff wants to eat them.
But saying all birds have no eye muscles and thus cannot move their eyes is technically untrue.
They perceive time faster
@@AngeloBarovierSD how does stereoptic vision work?
let's say humans got the ability to bave binocular & stereoptic vision like hawks - how would we see the world around us?
Most large aircraft tailplanes not only don't provide lift, they are actually designed to produce a downward force, and you just manipulate how much downward force it is creating.
Correct, conventional airplane tails actually cause drag
But why? That sounds like it just wastes fuel
@@gabedarrett1301 My hypothesis, not being versed on this subject, the tail functions as brakes, like an automobile?
@@gabedarrett1301 It's to balance out the upward force of the main wings. Flight in an airplane is all one huge balancing act between forces.
@@gabedarrett1301 To have stable flight in a fixed wing aircraft, the center of mass is ahead of the center of lift. This makes the tip drop towards the ground though. To counteract that, the tail is pushed down to lift the nose up as the center of lift acts kind of like a pivot point.
The memes, the bird videos, the robot, everything was perfect in this video
I'm really fascinated by the blend of biology and technology you present here in your bionic bird drone. It certainly gives fresh perspective on flight and the ways we can learn from nature's engineering marvels.
In the canard wing configuration, the horizontal stabilizer contributes to lift as well making for a very efficient airframe design. In the more common wing configuration, the horizontal stabilizer is located near the rear and acts as an inverted wing actually reducing lift in exchange for flight stability.
Canards are tricky to get right though. High speed stalls can be a real problem!
The efficiency gains are pretty hard to realise once you have designed some buffer from deadly stuff happening.
@@OzAndyifyFortunately, with modern technology (especially on-board computers), it is easier to get it right. In fact, most of Europe's Air Force already use that design.
@@Eis_In some cases they also actually want the canards gone like In su-35's they got the same maneuverability from using thrust vectoring instead of canards
And its better In some way i guess since they wouldnt switch away from canards for no reason
@@Eis_ Yeah, military planes are a valid use case for extra maneuverability more than stability, which is mostly electronic as you say.
As @DubiousSentimant says though, there are other solutions.
I desperately need me one of those, this looks so fun
@@crooker2thank you
@@crooker2 that one is 120, which still isn't much. i might buy one for the lulz and try to mod it
@@aquamirrorX What is the name of those ? I can't find them
@@ScareFire MetaFly
@@aquamirrorX how are you going to mod it?
I love how you describe the drone "majestic" with that background that most of the viewers (like me) will never experience in real life!
go hitchhike to the mountains my dude
I live in Allgovia (Allgäu). I can see something similar from my window, but I don‘t take a look outside that often.
Wow, what a vivid memory you’ve brought back for me. As a kid having watched A Bug’s Life and the scene where they build a “bird plane”, I’ve wondered why we haven’t made planes that fly like birds.
This is pretty cool! Back in the 70’s I had a wind up flappy yellow bird. It was lightweight plastic and made by a French toy company. It was quite simple by comparison, and had no radio control. It was a simple line of flight toy. This… this is by far a vast improvement!
Wow this is one of the few products I’ve seen on this channel that is legitimately incredible.
Ikr, I thought he was going to say it would be impractical to make since you have to constantly change the direction and velocity of the wings. Did not expect him to have a working bird drone. Edit: just looked at the thumbnail… I should have expected the drone bird lmao
Thank you @@nickbob2003 , This is one of our product 😊
he lives at an awesome place for sure
That old footage of the mechanical bird is quite amazing. I wonder when that was filmed? That's a very well constructed device for it's time.
You did the "birds are CIA listening devices" thing...😂...respect
🖍️🖍️🖍️
Yo, that opening was LEGENDARY! I laughed so hard 😂
The weight on a bird's tail is in lieu of a vertical stabilizer. If the bird rolls the tail to the right, the bird yaws to the left. If there was no air pressure on the tail then it would provide only horizontal flight stability but not yaw stability.
Most of the forward thrust of a bird, particularly larger birds such as hawk and eagle, is in the wrist and primary feathers. The secondaries attached to the arms provide some lift but little or no thrust. Basically the bird *swims* through the air scooping air with its hands then closing the fist and rapidly moving hands forward then opening again. This power cycle is long and deliberate, the recovery stroke is quick. This maintains a reasonably high duty cycle of providing thrust. Slotted primary feathers allow less resistance to air flowing between feathers on the upstroke.
If you look at pterosaur fossils, you realize they didn't have a tail. How the heck did they fly? When Paul MacCready designed a remote controlled flying pterosaur, it dawned on him - they used their head in lieu of a tail. Unfortunately having the control surfaces in front is dynamically unstable. Like how your car tends to go straight if you let go of the steering wheel (dynamically stable). But if you let go while moving in reverse, any small turn grows larger and larger (dynamically unstable). So the pterosaur had to constantly adjust its head position to keep itself flying. MacCready crashed a lot of them before he got a working computer algorithm which could provide real-time head motions to keep the thing flying.
@@solandri69some of them were so massive they had to jump from high ground to even take off.
The view of the mountains from that park is beautiful
I was searching in comments for this. Even I felt the same. Lucky to live in that kind of a place. Cities are too crowded and not fun.
@@soloqVenuagree, I personally hate big cities.
Living in a small village surrounded by forest is absolutely beautiful.
You can see the snow covered peaks in the background!
Anyone know where in the US this is?
Rainbolt probably does.
While everyones fixated on the nice drone, im here being amazed at the amount of detail your camera can pick up. I mean your hair is so freaking detailed!
1:22
"It gives a feeling you are watching a real bird fly"
* Calm music *
* Free falling to its demise*
Action lab doesn’t understand but when u post u brighten up people day I just want to say thanks for that hf
It was an extremely interesting video. I must agree, the bionic bird is truly majestic. hope to see future drones implement tail lift mechanisms in to design considerations.
Thank you!
Good one. Clever with the scale catching the air. The owl and tip vortices was fascinating.
Random Trivia:
In mine language words for flight, bird, and aeroplane are all connected to oneanother (same stem):
* flight - lend / lendama
* aeroplane - lennuk
* bird - lind
* ornithopter - linnuk (in earlier meaning, in the folk epic, this is name of mythological ship)
The thingy in the video is: mehitamata kaugjuhitav Linnuk (unmanned radio-controlled ornithopter)
I really appreciate this channel for giving me such fascinating information in a concise and entertaining format.
It's an Ornithopter
I was hoping you'd discuss efficiency! Your videos never stop being neat.
that was DEFINITELY not expected
Definitely one of the best science channels!!!
Things I didn’t know I needed.
We DEFINITELY NEED TO MIMIC NATURE IN TECHNOLOGY!!!❤😂🎉
dragonflys from dune would go so hard
Already did more of a toy but the concept was pretty cool . I had two
This is his best video yet!!!
Everything we try to do with technology, from medicine to engineering to softwares, is just trying to replicate something found in nature.
It's a reflection imitation. And when one gets deep into metaphysics, one begins to see/realize that it is a reflection of a reflection.
Shout out to the clip of Cape Town’s Table Mountain at the end 💛
I love the stock footage of a woman feeding a single french fry to a flock of gulls
One cool thing about bird flight (or at least undulating flight) is that rather than just moving their wings directly up and down, they create more of a figure-8 pattern to reduce drag on their upstroke.
That intro!!!!
This is the greatest intro I have ever seen
i love the part at @1:22 its like a batman shot with out the moon but with the moutains u can see thru the bird it matches the motutains then he dives
This is the kind of video that I want more emoticon responses for! I love this! Thank you for sharing 🤟
I can't wait to see a drone modeled after a peregrine falcon that can dive at 240 MPH.
how about an unpowered rc glider that does about 600mph. peregrine aint got nothing compared to that!
@@thomasseeley8124 DS gliders are freaking amazing!
You can do that with FPV drones right now.
A flapping drone is called an 'ornithopter.' Not a lot of people make or fly these but they are fascinating.
And the spice must flow!
I must not fear, fear is the mind killer
Last person I expected to see was Ralof. 😂
F
your wings design is soo gooood.
As someone who has chronic severe muscle spasms I always wonder if various animals get muscle cramps/spasms.
Imagine mid flight your wing cramps up.
Then bird dies > natural selection works > most birds don't get that genetic inheritance. Harsh but real.
animals can have cramps and spazms, oftenly from vitamin or mineral deficiencies
and yeah, can imagine it sucks for em too
Now we just need the superman flight comparison and analysis
This video was actually sponsored by government birds
Great video! didn't expect the skyrim joke lol but i'm not surprised.
That Skyrim reference tho 😂
I've seen plenty of insect drones, but never a bird before. Intriguing.
I wonder how long the battery lasts
8 minutes, recharge is 12-15 mins
I was on kickstarter for that one.. boy did it suck. Happy to see, yours flew.
Im excited that this is now available....would like it a little smaller.
That intro was something else, literally.
Huge win for birds is they are so much quieter.
Now this is a very good practical demonstration of heavier than air flight.
Well done video! Love the birds aren't real intro. Really great stuff 😂
ORNITHOPTER THE GRANDDADDY OF ALL ARTIFACTS
well played Todd, well played
Those mountains are beautiful!
Reminds me of the ornithopters that could be gotten from science museum gift shops. But, with added RC controls.
A video on thrust vectoring in this continuation will also be really good
Bro not the Skyrim "Hey you, you are finally awake" scene!! That really had me laughing bro.
I love the design of the wings, it looks more like a dragon fly or wasp. Like they say, it's best to look to nature when you want to find beauty and elegance. Cool stuff.
Very brave of you to explain how a wing generates lift on the internet. Well done! Btw @5:10 the tailplane of most aircraft actually produces a *down* force.
I would like to point out that we have had cheap wood/plastic spring powered toy that could fly like this 35 years ago.... the wing is made of a thin piece of plastic so it can deform differently when it flaps up and down.
The spring run through the body and you wine it up at the end.
the designs are usually dragonfly or butterfly
This is a great bird video. Really gives a bird’s eye view of birds
Part of the problem with mimicking birds was that people didn't even realise that birds don't just flap their wings up and down. The wing stroke usually performs some sort of figure 8 path.
So when they built up and down wing flapping mechanisms nothing much happened
i really want to see drones get as maneuverable and precise as birds, something you could have with you at a park that people wouldn't bat an eye at until it lands on your shoulder
A great explanation as always 👏🏼
Cant wait until these are used for fpv
I wish you reviewed in further detail the robot. It's fascinating!
OMG those mountains are majestic
Bro where is this man those mountains in the background look beautiful
Being able to quickly change directions is useful when flying this kind of drone into forests or within places with many light or electric poles.
Really wasn't expecting the Skyrim joke at the beginning! That was epic
That intro deserves an award
Coolest video you have made in months
You are a genius, dear❤❤
And I fall in love with the locatio that you live❤
Omg I so didn't expect the rorikroll. Welll played!
Great explanation!
Minor nitpick: When you weighed the air pushing down from the flappy bird drone some of the energy would have transferred to your fingers and so the weight ought to have been somewhat greater had the drone been able to fly unsupported. Still a good demonstration of the difference in propulsion force depending on angle, though!
I think it's important to note that the tail of planes is an airfoil but it just pushes down instead of up. It does this because the center of mass is placed in front of the center of lift for stall characteristics.
A plane with canards can have them create lift and avoid a tail. A flying wing design like a b2 doesnt even have a tail.
The creators have made everything perfect.
Our technology is mimicry of everything.
@RoxveYou sound like a child. How old are you child? Or are you drunk again?
what a short beautiful and informative video, love it!
lol action lab a bigger nerd than i realized, love it
Thank you for teaching us!
I have seen a few good ornithopter videos. I think they look so cool flying.
for that intro you deserved my thumbs up ^^
Hey, @The Action Lab, I've got one for you. It's called the Faraday Paradox. Apparently, if you rotate a magnet and conductor together, a small electric field can be measured between the edges of the conductor and the axis of rotation even though the conductor and magnet are relatively stationary. I have two thoughts on the subject: 1) Earth is a magnet, and 2) Oxygen is highly paramagnetic. There are plenty of theories out there that attribute the phenomenon to absolute rotation. I just want to know if it works in a vacuum.
Love this. Thanks for sharing
Depends on how fast you want to go, but people got another option - hide wings and use different trust then.
Wings will be important in urban environment, since all you need is thin foil and power of air/wind to generate trust without too much noise that hi speed engines do, if we fly in the near future, it may be perfect way for quiet take off.
Basically major problem for why there are no flying cars is this - noisy and hard take off.
First will come EV drones with many propellers(less noise than few), if those propellers are quiet enough it may not come tho.
Nice!
This is so cool I wish you guys create for man as well. Can't wait to fly with my technology wings
Was not ready for that intro 😂
I had a dragonfly shaped one of these as a kid, it was so interesting.