A Professional Aviator In Action

https://giant.gfycat.com/PastelKindheartedGar.webm

(And how many of you get to fold your wings...twice...before landing???)

Mankind has been fascinated by birds, and their ease of flight, since the dawn of time. I'm fascinated by how they can have a bath involving almost complete immersion, and then merely shake off the water and fly away.

Google says birds have a gland near their "tail" that secretes oil that they rub all over themselves, and thereby waterproof themselves. And here I was expecting a nice answer about the molecular structure of feathers. ?

That's a NZ tui. They have the most beautiful song made up of all sorts of sounds, whistles, piping noises, creaks and grunts. They are noisy flyers, fly in bursts as many birds do. But blindingly fast and maneuverable for their size when chasing other birds through and around trees and bush. Which they occasionally do, though whether it's territorial behaviour or a mating thing, I don't know....

Won't download?

They should fly well. They've been doing it for long enough and there's no ambulance and crew to pick up the bits if they stuff it up. I think we would get sicker in an ornithopter or at least get into a flap occasionally. You can't always pattern on Nature. A jumbo sized bee won't fly. Nev

Nev, probably just as well. Imagine the wake turbulence from 400tonnes of this :

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Reynolds number (scale effect) is the bogeyman. What works on little things doesn't work on bigger ones and vice versa. The Mumbo Jumbo is the hardest one to fathom. Nev