More than a million insects and approximately 11,000 vertebrates utilize flapping wings to
fly. However, flapping flight has only been studied in a few of these species, so many …

Powered flight was once a capability limited only to animals, but by identifying useful
attributes of animal flight and building on these with technological advances, engineers …

Many functions have been postulated for the aerodynamic role of the avian tail during steady-
state flight. By analogy with conventional aircraft, the tail might provide passive pitch stability …

In gliding flight, birds morph their wings and tails to control their flight trajectory and speed.
Using high-resolution videogrammetry, we reconstructed accurate and detailed three …

Slow flight is extremely energetically costly per unit time, yet highly important for takeoff and
survival. However, at slow speeds it is presently thought that most birds do not produce …

Here, we reviewed published aerodynamic efficiencies of gliding birds and similar sized
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) motivated by a fundamental question: are gliding birds …

The presented study investigates the design and development of an autonomous morphing
wing concept developed in the scope of the SmartX project, which aims to demonstrate in …

Recent investigations on the aerodynamics of natural fliers have illuminated the significance
of the leading-edge vortex (LEV) for lift generation in a variety of flight conditions. A well …

Birds morph their wings during a single wingbeat, across flight speeds and among flight
modes. Such morphing may allow them to maximize aerodynamic performance, but this …

Gliding is an important flight mode for insects because it saves energy during long distance
flight without wing flapping. In this study, we investigated the influence of locust wing …