Soaring vs. Flapping

"patrick timony" wrote in message
om...
In another post we were talking about soaring vs. flapping flight.
Does anyone else find it strange that Soaring flight is so rare in
nature but so popular with us for the last 100 years?

Where in the world did you get that idea? Soaring flight is _extremely_
common in nature. If you aren't flapping, you aren't expending energy
moving your wings, so you need less food, so you survive longer when food is
tight.
Hummingbirds need to eat a lot more often than turkey vultures.

I've heard that
the Wright Brothers patented Wing Warping (Flapping) and never let
anyone develop planes using Wing Warping flight. Is that true?

No. The Wright Brothers discovered and patented the only practical way to
control an airplane. They were perfectly willing to license their patented
invention. Not everyone wanted to pay royalties, so various people tried
"end runs" around the patent. None succeeded.
Their first implementation of roll control twisted the entire wing rather
than using separate control surfaces. But there was no flapping involved.

Does that explain why the designs up until the time of the Wright Brothers
were all Bird-like flapping designs and after were all fixed wing
soaring designs?

Not all designs previous to the Wrights were flapping wing machines.
Where are you hearing this stuff? If it's off a website, by all means give
us a pointer.

Tim Ward