Albatross can sleep on wings, they can take 1000km per day! They spend their life scanning Ocean from above... It's the most efficient animal on Earth in regards of distance/energy spent.
Albatross can fly for thousands of miles with out ever flapping their wings. Actually they can even lock their shoulder so they don't have to use their muscles to hold their wings. Its called "Dynamic Soaring" they are performing this maneuver at the following times in this clip: 0:41 0:59 1:17 1:30 ...
What a magnificent bird............how I would love to see one soaring above the ocean. Will just have to rely on pictures to see both these majestic birds. Many thanks for the music also....................
@everythinguwanted The wind blows slower close to the sea, and by varying its height the bird can extract energy from this situation. When it swoops low it is able to make progress to windward, and still have momentum to regain height for another swoop.
from many years of reading about these birds I can tell you that it seems quite likely if you consider that they can rest on the water surface like ducks. Also, they have some quite neat adaptations in their wings to "lock" them in place, thus reducing the strain almost completely.
@msf60khz Dave, lets give this bird some flight instruments. In your example lets say the bird has an indicated airspeed of 20kts but his gps groundspeed reads minus 10kts 'cause he's going backward. He's flying a heading of 360 and the wind is right on his nose from 360. He descends to the surface in a 30 deg dive and by the resultant vector of gravity plus lift he overcomes the wind and gps reads plus 10kts into the wind. When he encounters calm conditions at the surface (part 1 cont)
@everythinguwanted Imagine that the bird is high and is being blow along backwards by the wind. By slightly pointing down he can glide efficiently, but if it is foggy he does not know he is going backwards. Now he dives down to water level. He gains a lot of speed and also finds himself in calm air - but he thinks it is a wind from behind him. Now he makes progress to windward and gains speed enabling him to climb up again. Dave
@msf60khz (part 2 cont) and pulls out of the swoop, his IAS increases to 20kts and = gs due to calm air. Due to the compressability of air within 1/2 wingspan, he can ride this cushion for x # of secs, then the air and gs start to tail off. Here's where my mind goes numb. When the bird senses it has only enough energy left to climb for another go, all the forward motion is converted to the ascent where that 8 foot wingspan acts like a sail and he is again flying backwards. (cont to part 3)
Could someone please explain to me the aerodynamics at work here that enable seabirds to fly at length without flapping their wings. It's more than ground effect (although that magnifies it), the sea is flat, so there can't be an updraft, the albatross is found in cold waters so it can't be thermal, the only thing left is the ocean winds, which begs the question, why couldn't gliders replicate the actions shown here?
Sometimes they fly for a long time because they are afraid to land. Not the touch-down, but if there is not enough wind, it is almost impossible for them to take off from the flat ocean...
@UnkleSi I think I wore out Dave @msf60khz...I understood what he was saying but cant wrap my mind around the impractical nature of it. Its hard dealing with a numbskull like me. As for DS and gliders, that is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen...I think the WR is 382 knots! I've heard being a sailor makes you a better aviator and I can see that now. When my 'puter quits having brain farts I'll put a couple links to Wiki for those engineering papers.
@msf60khz I read two presentations by aeronautical engineers back when I posted and know what you suggest is approximately what was concluded in those papers. Apparently I'm not bright enough to see how they can make headway against the wind while gliding low with a tailwind at their back. Only the principle of dynamic soaring comes close to explaining it and I've watched videos on YT and still can't grasp it. I've resigned myself to enjoying the birds and stopped worrying about the physics.
@msf60khz (part 3 cont) The bird starts off flying backward at 10 kts, flys forward between 10-20 kts and returns to a condition of a stabilized hover (glide) while achieving a negative groundspeed of minus 10 kts (these numbers are totally imaginary and dont represent any calculation). So therein lies my dilema. But to be fair, I'm not entirely sure I could explain how sailboats can sail into the wind either, lol. I must have damaged DNA somewhere in the area of conceptualizing thoughts.
someone told me these birds can fly for five years without touching land, i find that extremely hard to believe has anyone heard of these birds being able to do anything like that, or any bird for that matter??
