Dynamic Soaring: How the Wandering Albatross Can Fly for Free 

Finally I see some research about this pattern. I've seen lots of seabirds like seagulls and the like use this same pattern on open see and always wandered how efficient it would be because it looked like they (almost) didn't move their wings. Thank you for this animation and the explanation.

I recently watched a video of the world's fastest radio controlled planes. I was expecting it to be one of those new high speed jets to be the fastest, but it was actually a glider!!! It got up to 450mph doing a continuous dynamic soaring loop on the leeward side of a slope.

Made me a good laugh at the very end.

Yep. Flight's fascinating. When I was little I remember asking my dad if he would help me make a bubble-blowing toy [the little wire hoop dipped into a solution of soapy water]. "Of course, Elli - you want to make some pretty bubbles, eh?" "No, I want to see the air with them." I couldn't explain what I meant at the time; what I meant was that I wanted to watch how the air currents affected them. (Yes, I was a weird child, and no, I didn't have many friends!😁) I'd spend hours with my binoculars, watching birds soaring. I made kites [and still do], and flew several at once at different heights to see how the wind varied. I'd launch paper aeroplanes from bridges, buildings, and steep hills just to watch how the air moved them. I became a keen aeromodeller, building all sorts of balsa and tissue planes and gliders - first just free-flight; then magnet-guided slope-soaring gliders; then bigger, heavier radio-controlled aircraft. I couldn't get enough of flying. I eventually got into full-sized soaring, and took up gliding. Thermal soaring was everything I'd dreamed it would be; it was amazing to feel the forces keeping me aloft. I'd read that George Cayley made the first man-carrying glider in 1853, and I wondered if he'd been looking for the same thing that I was. Thermal soaring was probably the nearest I could get to the albatross experience. Although I went on to get my PPL (in a Cessna 172), it wasn'r really what I wanted. Somehow, smashing the air aside and zooming around missed the point. I wanted to be part of the atmosphere. I was still absorbed with visualising air currents. Birds can sense them, feel them, and that was what intrigued me. I've gone back to making free-flight models, now. The recent introduction of 'drone laws', unfair taxes, exams and pilot registration has ruined the radio-controlled aircraft hobby for me, so I'm back with kites, balsa wood, tissue and imagination. I think in another hundred years or so I'll be just about starting to get the hang of things.🙂

No mention of the reduced drag in ground effect near the water letting them build up even more speed.

Wtf why is that albatross flying a plane!! Im dying 😂😂😂

I 've had them follow my ship deep sea in storms, has to seen to be believed in bad weather, they dont even feel it.

totally awesome!! thanks for post!

Awesome videography and good explanation of the mechanics of the flight pattern of the albatross.

Awesome illustration

Great explanation

Thank you. Educational!

This is a gem

That's exactly how I fly when I'm dreaming, but I seem to pull it off going straight.

And don't forget the added benefit of 70% less drag using ground effect. That's where you fly less than one wing width above the ground or water.

She has a great sense of humor

Great vid! Kindly regards from an electronic pal!

Some more of Natures Excellence which we are yet to copy.

Basically the Albatross uses his wings like a sail to collect the wind’s kinetic energy and transform it into potential energy (altitude), then transform the potential energy into kinetic energy by descending which allows it to advance against the slower shallow wind and start all over.

cool video. 👍

I think in simple terms the albatross is making use of those speed differences in the wind at various altitudes. Ideally it would always want the lift from a strong headwind, and would always head into it, but of course it needs to fly in other directions too to find food etc. and although it had lift would not make ground by heading into the wind all the time. Going downwind it starts to fall - although faster in flight because now pushed by the wind. The low or near zero wind at the water surface allows it to make an easy turn and head back up into the wind with lift giving increased altitude. Shearwaters seem to make lower and more continuous flights to the water than albatross but I guess doing the same thing? It's tacking in three dimensions.

This is one awesome bird

Who taught them how to use the dynamic flight?

The albatross in the glider at the end killed me

I'm pretty high and instantly understood this...

Concise 👍

Looks like If Bernard and Bianca want to go on any future rescue missions This species will have to make a come back because Wilbur and Orville from the rescuers and the rescuers down Under happen to be the wandering albatross just wanted to let you know that

It's not really about extracting power from the wind's own energy, but exploiting parabolic geometry over a gradient of variable space.

This video starts with "The Wandering Albatross can spend weeks at sea without ever returning to land". There's an understatement if ever I've heard one. Try "years". When these birds fledge they spend 6 to 7 YEARS at sea before they return to land again for the first time. Nice touch at the end of the video though :-D

When I die.....I will hope and pray with all my might to be an Albatross in another Life.

just cool :)

凄い勇姿。アルバトロスの魅力。

Welcome to 'Albatross Airline' . : )

i love this bird

02:21 "...and far further..." That is the improper use of further (to advance something). The correct word is farther ( to a greater distance). and far farther*

0:30 Albatrossess are huge.

Science can be fun❤️❤️❤️❤️The Albatross thanks✌️

Hey Guys great video and nice animations. However in my eyes the explanation is not entirely correct. I think Dynamic Soaring is characterized by the gain of kinetic energy when a bird or plane crosses an aerea of shared wind in a way that the relative airspeed of the bird increases. Every time a bird choses an up wind flight direction, it gains energy by increasing head wind. This applies as well when the Albatross is in decent direction downways. But the upwind direction of course is more beneficial regarding the energy balance. In summary the moments the Albatross gains energy are the flight phases strait into the wind and strait down into the lower and slower wind areas. Whlie the energy loss ocsurs in both curves (yes also the upwind curve does have a negative engergy balance). Best P.

Understand and thanks for showing. A complexity not mentioned: The albatross relies on winds on the circumpolar ocean (southern hemisphere, south of continents: Winds whip around the globe). Winds are not so strongly and consistently like that elsewhere. =Drones and planes would have great difficulty/ limited use for this technique. And there's little to bomb except water over the circumpolar ocean, haha,.

How long do they stay in the air before floating on the see to rest? Even though the wings rarely flap, they still gotta get tire for being fully extended.

No mention of wing in ground effect providing more energy for free.

You mean military drones. However "drones" is an umbrella term to all sorts of unmanned robots. It can be a cartography drones, cargo drones, weather drones, forest fire surveillance drones etc. etc. I recon the forest fire surveillance drone would be the one benefiting the most as it would be the best if it ould stay in the sky indefinitely long (as it is today cameras on elevated locations are implied and drones fly only if such camera spot smoke, but such system is far from perfect.)

0:56

Great presentation! Thanks for the upload. Does the pilot, Andy Albatross have a sailplane rating? lol

Albatross's can put half of it's brain asleep, and alternate sleep from one side of the brain to the other while in flight for days, months

Caught the humor pretty quick. LOL!

If you think this is interesting you should watch BTD10: The 835kph Sailplane and Dynamic Soaring!!!!

That's one high resolution data.

Coastal Redwood next

it appears a combination of upwind lift, downwind gravitational kinetic descend and WIG wing on ground recuperation cycle

google earth day? yeah me too..

So perpetual motion is impossible but not perpetual flight? Strange world!

gliding albatross piloting a glider...If they catch onto that we're doomed

They say drone, but then show a glider with a pilot.

lmao the end hahahaha that's cute

I don't understand. At 1:03, you say "it" rises. What is the the "it", that rises? If you mean the wind, then the sentence runs something like; ~ the wind rises with the wind ~. I get the general idea of what the bird is doing, and the graphics are good, I just question the text at 1:03! Thanks.

Albatrosses rule!

Don't they need to sleep though?

Someone seriously needs to make a good movie about albatrosses. Perhaps an underdog plot where an albatross who can't fly learns how and becomes the best would be great.

The big question is how do individual birds learn to do this? Are they taught by their parents or is the knowledge innate, and if so what is the mechanism that embeds such knowledge?

Another mystery is why Albatross has no vertical and horizontal stab....

We already can. I've been flying dynamic slope soaring for 20 years. It's hardly a mystery.

Fly further on less fuel but takes forever to get from point A to point B.

Jesus, check that out at 0:31! I never realized how big they were until I saw them next to a person. Fucking wild.

how does it spend weeks at sea awake?

Descend for speed - use speed and wind to get ascend - repeat process?

What if there's no wind.

People have used this concept to fly motorless RC gliders at speeds of over 500 mph

Interesting that the albatross has no tail for stability... it's basically a flying wing

Whoops

nice birb

the albatross knows

Wtf, precise high res what? Is that a peso?

Just cruising...

i think it is p obvious what is happening, the bird is wave soaring the same way glider pilots do, you can see it clear as day in the vid, each wave produces a small rising current of lift as the wind hits it, the bird rises with this then dips in between each consecutive wave, as there is no longer that rising current, until the next wave...rinse and repeat 1000s km

Whether you like it or not, military is the first who would pay generously for this kind of technology. After all it might be something we could not replicate as our technologies may be not advanced enough, - so this risk alone is enough to scare all commercial clients away, leaving only military interested.

Who else came here from today's doodle?

Good to study the secrets of this magnificent bird, but we must be careful not to exploit it only for what it can provide in technological progress for man. It is a wondrous creature, many species of which are endangered due to commercial fishing and other habitat threats. Great to celebrate its adaptations, though.

COC ,🤘

Anyone beleive that albatross inspired stuka dive bomber

Well there isn't really any practical use for this system in manned flight; it's efficient, but it's slow, and impractical for aircraft of larger sizes, which have to be continuously maneuvering at very low altitudes.

This girl filmin being like: I'M SO FAR AWAY FROM SEA I CAN SEE AND ALBOTRAOZ! Like I would be scaref

who else got here after the radio controlled airplane guinesss record flight :-)

Your channel name reminds me of Garfield screaming.

a good report until the mention of drones...

Did you here the albatrooss say shut up steve to me.?

whatever happened to the first law of thermodynamics

that bird in plane at last of video is a paid actor......lol

But drones need to be high altitude.

That's not flying, that's falling with action.

I watch buzzardz in summer riding the thermals

Dynamic Soaring? Why don't they just call it "Wind Surfing"?

SUBHANALLAH

BADASS 😮🎉

im an albatross

So basically an oppressor in gta

Mindy.

the name sounded like "gloria borger". The pewdiepie memes must be getting to me

أَوَلَمۡ يَرَوۡاْ إِلَى ٱلطَّيۡرِ فَوۡقَهُمۡ صَٰٓفَّٰتٖ وَيَقۡبِضۡنَۚ مَا يُمۡسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنُۚ إِنَّهُۥ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءِۭ بَصِيرٌ (Sahih International) Do they not see the birds above them with wings outspread and [sometimes] folded in? None holds them [aloft] except the Most Merciful. Indeed He is, of all things, Seeing. -Sura Al-Mulk, Ayah 19

Google Earth Day brought me here