Hummingbirds use wing inertial effects to improve manoeuvrability.

ABSTRACT: Hummingbirds outperform other birds in terms of aerial agility at low flight speeds. To reveal the key mechanisms that enable such unparalleled agility, we reconstructed body and wing motion of hummingbird escape manoeuvres from high-speed videos; then, we performed computational fluid dynamics modelling and flight mechanics analysis, in which the time-dependent forces within each wingbeat were resolved. We found that the birds may use the inertia of their wings to achieve peak body rotational acceleration around wing reversal when the aerodynamic forces were small. The aerodynamic forces instead counteracted the reversed inertial forces at a different wingbeat phase, thereby stabilizing the body from inertial oscillations, or they could become dominant and provide additional rotational ac

SUBMITTER: Haque MN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10547554 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature