Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
 

Brian Wiseman sent me a copy of the “New Scientist” article about developments in the understanding of insect flight. The basis of the report was that bumble bees creates high-velocity/low pressure vortices along their wing leading edges that enhance lift from their flapping wings. The same thing applies to all insect flight, apparently. In the usual rush to exploit such discoveries to military advantage, remote drones have been built with flexible, ribbed wings. They are pretty small, aiming for a 7.5 cm wingspan and a flying weight of 10 grams.

But the main development impetus could well come from toy manufacturers “Imaging sitting in your living room doing aerial combat with radio-controlled dragonflies” said the lead researcher.   Two things hit me—modellers have been building flapping-wing aircraft with flexible ribbed wings for years and years, so there’s nothing new in this, and who was it decided that bees could fly anyway?

(In 1919 a German engineer Wilhelm Hoff calculated that a bee could not fly according to the rules of  aerodynamics as then understood. In 1981, Tony Maxworthy of USC showed that the vortices were the key to the insect’s success—Ed, from the New Scientist article)

The Bumble Bee.

How do you Bumble Bees fly? I asked.
If you apply the laws of flight,
You're far too heavy for the size of your wings
The whole thing is not quite right.

How do you Bumble Bees fly? I asked:
How do you keep in the Air?
There's not enough lift for the size of your wings
It really is not very fair.

1 have vortices on my wings he said,
That's how I fly high and low.
How did you know about that? 'I asked.
He replied, I am cleverer than you'

You are not cleverer than me, I said
Your shape is a matter for mirth.
The Bee said We were flying about
Before humans appeared on the earth.

My ancestors understood vortices,
Whilst yours were still high in the trees
Waving their arms and hopping about
While we were just being bees.

Brian Wiseman. October 2009

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