Quote:
Originally Posted by Leto
I'm trying to see how much of it was gliding/forward momentum versus actual flying. He seemed to go quite a distance.
Really cool.
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They included those details:
Quote:
Todd Reichert, a PhD candidate at the university’s Institute of Aerospace Studies, piloted the wing-flapping aircraft, sustaining both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds and covering a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour.
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The reason they included this is that powered flight is the ability to maintain both airspeed and altitude. Gliders cannot maintain both; they can maintain altitude at the cost of airspeed, or airspeed at the cost of altitude. They fly for so long by using thermals to gain altitude, but the climb causes a lost of airspeed. All things fall, and there is no way for a plane to maintain an altitude without trading back and forth with airspeed.
Because he travelled for 19.3 seconds while maintaining altitude and airspeed, he 'flew' for 19.3 seconds, regardless of initial momentum or glide that got him to that airspeed or that altitude.