(patrick timony) wrote in message . com...
soaring flight is quite common in nature.

I agree. I was thinking in terms of the evolution of flight or of
propulsion - that soaring would be further down the line than flapping
(undulating), and thus rarer, because everything had to flap before it
could soar.

If you believe the paleontologists, they say that the pterodons did
not flap - they dropped from cliffs and soared. Archaeopterix may
have flapped, but it didn't have much of a breastbone to support
flapping muscles.


Wing warping isn't flapping, it was a way to effect directional
changes in flight by changing the shape of the wing.

Wing warping is the very beginning of flapping. At this wing warping
page: http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/warp.html if you move the java
applet slider back and forth you can see how wing warping could be
propulsive. That's the same motion that many animals use to propel
themselves; they don't separate the steering from the acceleration,
it's just one fluid motion.


That's an inaccurate simplification. To provide lift and propulsion,
the wing has to move back and down, not just twist about its axis.
Basic physics.

Yes, they did enforce their patent with vigor and largely succeeded
in the
USA until WW I, effectively hampering aircraft development.

ailerons worked better.

It sounds like this patent forced the industry to build bigger faster
planes that soar instead of smaller and slower planes that warp or
flap.

Nonsense. Their vigorous enforcement spurred the development of
ailerons, not gliders.


People made bird-like flapping designs for manned flight because they
saw birds flying and thought that was the way man should fly as well.

That makes sense. I trust Leonardo. I have a feeling that he didn't
think any wrong thoughts. He wasn't a speculator as much as an
instrument that allows you to see possibilities. And his designs and
Otto Leilenthal's are so beautiful compared to anything since, they
must be right.

As t'was said: Beautiful plus useless equals useless. Leo's
aeronautical designs show a fine ignorance of the hard realities of
power loading. His helicopter and ornithopter may be pretty, but they
cannot be made to work as designed. Physics trumps beauty *every*
time. Just look at the F-4, B-52, and A-10. Ugly as a pimple on a
warthog's butt. But they WORK.