Flight
Project X takes Flight with its debut episode!
Dr. Brian Fleck takes a ride in a hang glider to help illustrate the basic physics of flight, along the way explaining how something the size of an apartment building can actually get off the ground. Marc Huot then goes skiing in a wind tunnel to unlock the secrets of an Olympic Gold alpine jump. And together they take a look at the human contribution to flight – rocket science.
But flying is not quite as easy as these guys make it out to be. Dr. Jennifer Gardy picks up a few tips from some of Canada’s top fighter pilots on how to sustain performance and focus even under high levels of G force. Next she’s off to take a parabolic flight with the National Research Council, during which she’ll experience the feeling of zero Gs – weightlessness. (Read what Dr. Gardy has to say about these harrowing experiences on the Project X Blog)
And Dr. Brian Alters gets up close and personal with the only mammals capable of really flying – bats. Meeting with bat experts and researchers he’ll help to show us that, for all the progress we humans have made in defying gravity, we still have a lot to learn from nature’s experts.
Did You Know?
- The flight of bats, the biggest jet and the smallest ultra light are all governed by the same basic physics of flight.
- Michael Barber took the longest hang glider flight ever on June 19, 2002 in Zapata Texas - a distance of 704 km.
- Humans experience increased g-forces everyday. A cough is 3.9 g and a sneeze 2.9 g.
- The average human can tolerate forces of up to 5 g, but pilots are trained to withstand forces of up to 9 g - they’re called g monsters.
- Bats are the only mammals capable of true fight. The structure of their open wing is similar to a human hand.
- A bat wing has 20 joints, which allows it to make complex high-speed maneuvers in very cluttered environments.
Further Reading
Science Fun with Airplanes
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~flight/homepage.htmlSurviving 7G, Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/7g.htmlBat Conservation International
http://www.batcon.org/home/default.aspLubee Bat Conservatory
http://www.lubee.orgBat Flight Visualization, Brown University
http://vis.cs.brown.edu/areas/projects/bat.html
