On the sizeable wings of albatrosses
Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 10:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- An oceanographer may be offering the best explanation yet of one of the great mysteries of flight--how albatrosses fly such vast distances, even around the world, almost without flapping their wings. The answer, says Philip L. Richardson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), lies in a concept called dynamic soaring, in which the large bird utilizes the power of above-ocean wind shear while tacking like an airborne sailboat.