Researchers attached covert feather-inspired flaps to a 3D-printed model airplane wing and mounted it in a wind tunnel to explore the role of covert feathers in bird flight. By precisely measuring how ...

Engineers are taking inspiration from birds to design a new kind of flying robot that could be more flexible, safer, and better suited to complex environments than today’s drones. Instead of relying ...

Engineers found a way to help airplanes avoid stall with lightweight plastic flaps that flutter with pressure changes. The flaps mimick a class of feathers that are key to birds' most daring aerial ...

A bird banking in a crosswind doesn't rely on spinning blades. Its wings flex, twist and respond instantly to its environment ...

Whether they’re opening for takeoff, spreading wide for a lazy soar or flapping to brake for landing, bird wings make flying ...

Postdoctoral researcher Girguis O. Sedky sitting inside of the wind tunnel, showing the covert feather-inspired flaps attached to the 3D-printed model airplane wing. The flaps deploy automatically in ...

A major new theory for the evolution of flight is changing textbooks around the world. It involves wing-assisted incline running and a fundamental bird wing angle. One of the scientists who led the ...

The ability of birds to fly more efficiently by changing the shape of their wings has inspired a number of approaches to developing low-energy aircraft. If this technique can be replicated, where ...