Tagged: flapping flight

The Limit of Aerial Evolution

The thought of a Cessna 152 dropping out of the sky from 20,000 ft at 300 mph and pulling out of the plunge five feet off of the ground would scare most pilots to death. But for Argentavis magnificens, it was a lifestyle. Six million years ago, the twenty-three foot wide monster bird would come […]

Festo Unveils Flying Robot Bird

Man, a curious and daring creature, has always dreamed of flight. Before the invention of the hot air balloon and the airplane, he looked towards nature for his inspiration, and what he saw was one of her most brilliant and graceful creations—the bird. Now, in a time when artificial flight is not only feasible but now […]

Festo’s Flapping Flight

The German company, Festo specializes in Pneumatic and Electrical automation technology. This means that their research is directed toward the mastery and optimization of efficient airflow. At this company they have ongoing research in the automation field with their Bionic Learning Network. Here they take engineers and scientists from their company along with people from […]

Fly Like a… Bar-Headed Goose?

Have you ever seen a movie where birds are flying directly next to an airplane? Probably, but obviously in the real world, it could never happen. However, there are some birds that do fly above those nimbus clouds. The bar-headed goose. Magnificent and graceful, these geese migrate over Mount Everest every winter. Mount Everest capped […]

Festo’s SmartBird

Earlier in the semester, I wrote my first blog post on “A Robot that Flies like a Bird.” The post was inspired by a video I saw last summer. Within the video, the head of the team Markus Fischer introduced the world to the first ever robot that flies like a bird; or so we […]