Hi Moose,
I agree that the wing motion of the bumblebee is indeed complex. I received
my degree in Aeronautical Engineering more than sixty years ago. I suspect
that the bee wing requires a combination of fore and aft movement along with
angle of attack changes on each sweep, combined with some flapping motion.
The circular motion seen in my photo shows the wing pivoting about its
attachment point, but 1/4000 of a second was not fast enough to see any
other details.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Moose" <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: One More Bee
> On 5/22/2012 5:08 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
>> What caught my eye was the circular motion. I had suspected it was more
>> of
>> a flapping motion. He looks like he has a helicopter rotor!
>
> I know this has been covered here before. The famous, and famously
> misunderstood, paper by an aeronautics student on why
> a Bumblebee can't fly was actually a tongue in cheek challenge to his
> profession about their need to progress further in
> their understanding of the physics of flight.
>
> One result was research that showed that bee flight relies on rather
> complex wing motion and scale effects to achieve
> what wings that size could not, based on simple wing physics used for
> aircraft design.
>
> Flying Moose
>
> --
> What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
> --
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