- Invited
- Open Access
Flight of the fruit fly
Phys. Rev. Fluids 4, 110503 – Published 18 November, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.4.110503
Abstract
There comes a time in each of our lives where we grab a thick section of the morning paper, roll it up and set off to do battle with one of nature's most accomplished aviators—the fly. If, however, instead of swatting we could magnify our view and experience the world in slow motion we would be privy to a world-class ballet full of graceful figure-eight wing strokes, effortless pirouettes, and astonishing acrobatics. After watching such a magnificent display, who among us could destroy this virtuoso? How do flies produce acrobatic maneuvers with such precision? What control mechanisms do they need to maneuver? More abstractly, what problem are they solving as they fly? In this article and the associated video presentation of my invited lecture from the Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics, I describe the challenges associated with answering these questions, our attempts to investigate them, and, through various demonstrations depicted in the video, qualitatively illustrate the mechanisms used by these insects to achieve these astonishing behaviors.
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2019 Invited Papers
Physical Review Fluids publishes a collection of papers associated with the invited talks presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics.
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References (13)
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