ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2020
Bird wings act as a suspension system that rejects gusts.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Wing-Tail Coupling on Aerodynamic Performance of Flapping-Wing Aircraft.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A wind-tunnel gust generator for soaring birds and small UAVs.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Electrostatic adhesion mitigates aerodynamic losses from gap formations in feathered wings.Communications engineering · 2025Article
- The spatiotemporal richness of hummingbird wing deformations.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Adaptive morphing of wing and tail for stable, resilient, and energy-efficient flight of avian-inspired drones.npj Robotics · 2024Article
- Morphological evolution of bird wings follows a mechanical sensitivity gradient determined by the aerodynamics of flapping flight.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Review of the Flight Control Method of a Bird-like Flapping-Wing Air Vehicle.Micromachines · 2023Review
- Dynamics of hinged wings in strong upward gusts.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Lessons from natural flight for aviation: then, now and tomorrow.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Review
- On the role of tail in stability and energetic cost of bird flapping flight.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Opportunistic soaring by birds suggests new opportunities for atmospheric energy harvesting by flying robots.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Review
- Estimating fine-scale changes in turbulence using the movements of a flapping flier.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Gull dynamic pitch stability is controlled by wing morphing.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- A method for continuous study of soaring and windhovering birds.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Article
- Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2022Article
- Dragondrop: a novel passive mechanism for aerial righting in the dragonfly.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Musculoskeletal systems cope with many environmental perturbations without neurological control. These passive preflex responses aid animals to move swiftly through complex terrain. Whether preflexes play a substantial role in animal flight is uncertain. We investigated how birds cope with gusty environments and found that their wings can act as a suspension system, reducing the effects of vertical gusts by elevating rapidly about the shoulder. This preflex mechanism rejected the gust impulse through inertial effects, diminishing the predicted impulse to the torso and head by 32% over the first 80 ms, before aerodynamic mechanisms took effect. For each wing, the centre of aerodynamic loading aligns with the centre of percussion, consistent with enhancing passive inertial gust rejection. The reduced motion of the torso in demanding conditions simplifies crucial tasks, such as landing, prey capture and visual tracking. Implementing a similar preflex mechanism in future small-scale aircraft will help to mitigate the effects of gusts and turbulence without added computational burden.
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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.