ArticleThe Journal of experimental biology2020
High aerodynamic lift from the tail reduces drag in gliding raptors.
Article in The Journal of experimental biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Wing-Tail Coupling on Aerodynamic Performance of Flapping-Wing Aircraft.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Comparative Biologists and Aerospace Engineers: Important Allies to Explore the Secrets of Natural Flight.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Span Efficiency of Flying Animals.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Dynamic Morphospaces for Animal Locomotion: A Case Study in Bird Flight.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Review
- Myliobatid Ray Gliding Dynamics: Experimental Tests of Body Shape and Tail Length on Stability.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Agile manoeuvrable flight via collaborative wing-tail adjustment of a flapping wing robot.Communications engineering · 2025Article
- Wing extension-flexion coupled aeroelastic effects improve avian gliding performance.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Research on the Coupled Bionic Design and Validation of Flying Car Folding Wings Based on Eurasian Eagle-Owl Wing Shape.Applied bionics and biomechanics · 2025Article
- Data-Driven Sparse Sensor Placement Optimization on Wings for Flight-By-Feel: Bioinspired Approach and Application.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Investigation of models to estimate flight performance of gliding birds from wakes.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2024Article
- Steady as they hover: kinematics of kestrel wing and tail morphing during hovering flights.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Lessons from natural flight for aviation: then, now and tomorrow.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Review
- Numerical assessment of wake-based estimation of instantaneous lift in flapping flight of large birds.PloS one · 2023Article
- Dynamic experimental rigs for investigation of insect wing aerodynamics.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Review
- Virtual manipulation of tail postures of a gliding barn owl (Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Design and Implementation of Morphed Multi-Rotor Vehicles with Real-Time Obstacle Detection and Sensing System.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Future Tail Tales: A Forward-Looking, Integrative Perspective on Tail Research.Integrative and comparative biology · 2021Review
- Raptor wing morphing with flight speed.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2021Article
- Bird wings act as a suspension system that rejects gusts.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Many functions have been postulated for the aerodynamic role of the avian tail during steady-state flight. By analogy with conventional aircraft, the tail might provide passive pitch stability if it produced very low or negative lift. Alternatively, aeronautical principles might suggest strategies that allow the tail to reduce inviscid, induced drag: if the wings and tail act in different horizontal planes, they might benefit from biplane-like aerodynamics; if they act in the same plane, lift from the tail might compensate for lift lost over the fuselage (body), reducing induced drag with a more even downwash profile. However, textbook aeronautical principles should be applied with caution because birds have highly capable sensing and active control, presumably reducing the demand for passive aerodynamic stability, and, because of their small size and low flight speeds, operate at Reynolds numbers two orders of magnitude below those of light aircraft. Here, by tracking up to 20,000, 0.3 mm neutrally buoyant soap bubbles behind a gliding barn owl, tawny owl and goshawk, we found that downwash velocity due to the body/tail consistently exceeds that due to the wings. The downwash measured behind the centreline is quantitatively consistent with an alternative hypothesis: that of constant lift production per planform area, a requirement for minimizing viscous, profile drag. Gliding raptors use lift distributions that compromise both inviscid induced drag minimization and static pitch stability, instead adopting a strategy that reduces the viscous drag, which is of proportionately greater importance to lower Reynolds number fliers.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.