No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Flight in Nature and in Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Extract
Due proportions being established, it can be said that the present time, as regards what has been called the “conquest of the air,” is comparable to that extremely remote epoch in which Nature for her part also solved the problem of flight.
Man arrived late in the history of his life at the realisation of locomotion in the air, but Nature also reached the same realisation only in a second stage of the evolution of living forms. The early animal species were all wingless, the development of the wings being the effect of a successive adaptation.
At present the number of fliers is very large.
From calculations of the zoologist Dödering, mentioned by the zoologist Zschokke, together with a large number of interesting data and information about animal flight in a very important book, we know that among 420,000 animal species at present existing at least 260,000 are able to move through air. As is seen, flight is a faculty widespread in Nature; from the figures some 62 per cent, of the species living to-day is adapted to aerial locomotion. If from these calculations we exclude water creatures, which give a small contribution of fliers (and moreover of a very poor quality), the ratio of the flying to the nonflying species rises to 75 per cent.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1932
References
1 Zschokke, F.—“Der Flug der Tiere.” Berlin, Springer 1919. Another important work consulted is: “How Insects Fly,” by Snodgrass, R. E. (Smithsonian Report, Washington, 1930)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Crocco's hydroplane, constructed in the year 1907, was on view during the International Aero Exhibition of the year 1929, at the Science Museum, South Kensington.
3 “The Streamline Aeroplane,” by Jones, Melvill. The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, XXXIII., 1929, May, pp. 357–385 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 “Aerial Navigation,” by Sir George Cayley, 1809. The Aeronautical Classics. Edited for the Council of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, 1910, p. 6.
5 “The History of Aeronautics in Great Britain,” by Hodgson, J. E.. London, 1924 Google Scholar.
“Flying,” by Lieut.-Col. W. Lockwood Marsh. London, 1929.
“Handbook of the Collections Illustrating Heavier-than-Air Craft,” by M. J. B. Davy, Science Museum, 1929.
“Henson and Stringfellow—Their Work in Aeronautics.” By M. J. B. Davy, Science Museum, London, 1931.
6 “Aviatik, wie, der Vogel fliegt und wie der Mensch fliegen wird,” by W. Kress. Vienna, 1905—French Translation in the year 1909.
7 Gustav Lilienthal Die Biotechnik des Fliegens. Verlag in; Leipzig R. Voigtlanders 1925 (pages 97-98).
8 Truly Helmholtz in a way dealt with flight and precisely to demonstrate that man could never fly with the forces of the muscular energy. (Berlin Akad. Monatsberichten, 1873, p. 501).
9 Louis Mouillard “L'Empire de l'Air.” Paris, 1881. “Le vol sans battement” ouvrage posthume. Paris, 1912.
10 “ Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst,” by Lilienthal, Otto 1890. Second edition, 1910, p. 73 Google Scholar.
11 P. Idrac. Etudes Expérimentales sur le vol à, voile. Paris, 1922. Contribution à l'étude du vol des albatros. C.R.A.S. 7 juillet 1924, and Le vol des albatros. Rech et Inv. 1925.
A. Magnan Recherches Expe'rimentales sur le vol à voile. Paris, 1922. Le vol à, voile. Paris, 1925. Le vol des oiseaux et le vol des avions. Bulletin Technique n. 74 Juin 1931. Services Techniques de l'Aeronautique.
12 “Die Seitenwege der Luftfahrt,” by Th. v. Kármán. Z.F.M. n. 16, 1931.
13 “Aeronautical Progress, 1914 to 1930,” by R. A. Southwell. Aircraft Engineering, June, 1930, p. 139,
14 “The Sin2 Law,” by Col. R. De Villamil. Aeronautics, Feb. 1913, pp. 55-56.
15 Lanchester, F. W.. “Aerodynamics,” London, 1907 Google Scholar; “The Flying Machine: the Aerofoil in the, Light of Theory and Experiment,” London, 1915.
16 W. M. Kutta. “Auftriebs Kräfte in strömenden Fliissigkeiten” (Illustrierte Aeronautische Mitteilungen, 1902, p. 133). Other papers by Prof. Kutta on the matter followed in the years 1910 and 1911.
17 A first paper in Russian, entitled “On Adjoint Vortices,” was published in the year 1906. Others followed in the years 1906, 1910, 1911.
18 “The fundamental work of Prof. Prandtl on the aerofoil theory was published in the years 1918 and 1919 with the title “Tragfliigel Theorie” (Göttingen Nachrichten).
19 “The ‘Elements of the Lanchester-Prandtl Theory of the Aeroplane Lift and Drag” (Engineering, 1924).
20 “Uber Flüssigkeitsbewegungen bei sehr Kleiner Reibung.” A paper presented to the Mathematical Congress of Heidelberg (1904), and published in the year 1905.
21 “I modelli delle macchine volanti di Leonardo da Vinci.” Rome, “L'Ingegnere,” n. 2, 1931.
22 For further information, on this point see “The Aerodynamics of Leonardo da Vinci.” “The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society,” n. 240, Vol, XXXIV., Dec. 1930.