Flight
Flight is the process by which an animal or object which is heavier than air achieves sustained movement either through the
air by
aerodynamically generating
lift or
aerostatically using
buoyancy, or movement beyond
earth's atmosphere, in the case of
spacecraft.
 |
A Herring Gull in flight |
The most successful groups of
living things that fly are
insects,
birds, and
bats. Each of these groups'
wings
evolved separately from different structures. See also
Bird flight.
Pterosaurs were a group of flying
vertebrates contemporaneous with the
dinosaurs.
Bats are the only
mammals capable of true flight. However, there are several
gliding mammals which are able to glide from tree to tree using fleshy membranes between their limbs; some can travel hundreds of metres in this way with very little loss in height.
Flying tree frogs use greatly enlarged webbed feet for a similar purpose, and there are
flying lizards which employ their unusually wide, flattened rib-cages to the same end. Certain
snakes also use a flattened rib-cage to fly, with a back and forth motion much the same as they use on the ground.
Flying fish can glide using enlarged wing-like fins, and have been observed soaring for hundreds of metres using the updraft on the leading edges of waves. It is thought that they evolved this ability to help them escape from underwater predators.
Most
birds fly (
see bird flight), with some exceptions. The largest birds, the
ostrich and the
emu, are earthbound, as were the now-extinct
dodos, while the non-flying
penguins have adapted their wings for use under water. Most small flightless birds are native to small islands, and lead a lifestyle where flight would confer little advantage. The
Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal in the world; its
terminal velocity exceeds 370
km/h (199
mph) in a dive.
Among living animals that fly, the
wandering albatross has the greatest wingspan, up to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet); the
trumpeter swan and the
great bustard compete for the greatest weight, at around 24
kilograms (38 pounds).
Among the many
species of
insects, some fly and others do not (See
insect flight).
In fiction
*
Dumbo, the
Disney-created
elephant, employs his comically oversized ears as wings for flight.
* Western
dragons are depicted with wings.
*
Superman is a
superhero in comic books, cartoons, and films; flight is among the various superpowers he is portrayed to obtain from the yellow rays of
earth's sun. Most
fictional comic book superheroes are said to fly by willpower rather than by telekinetically levitating themselves.
Jean Grey of the
X-Men is an exception who uses
telekinesis to levitate slightly above ground.
Storm of the
X-Men flies by controlling the weather in her immediate vicinity.
*
Santa Claus has a sleigh pulled by flying
reindeer.
* In the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books,
Arthur Dent accomplishes flight by throwing himself at the ground and missing.
*
Pegasus was a winged horse in
Greek mythology. Pegasus appears in the 1980s film
Clash of the Titans.
Mechanical flight is the use of any of a number of complex
machines, called
aircraft, to fly. Examples are
aeroplanes,
helicopters,
autogyros,
airships,
balloons, and
spacecraft.
Gliders provide unpowered flight.
The most common form of mechanical flight is aeroplane flight. Several steps are involved:
*
Flight planning,
*
Taxiing,
*
Take off,
*
Climbing,
*
Cruising,
*
Descending, and
*
Landing.
See aviation history and First flying machine for the history of mechanical flight.*Early aviation pioneers
**
Lu Ban**
Armen Firman**
Abbas Ibn Firnas**
Eilmer of Malmesbury**
Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi**
Bartolomeu de Gusmão**
Lagari Hasan Çelebi**
Emmanuel Swedenborg**
George Cayley**
Otto Lilienthal**
Charles Renard**
Jean-Marie Le Bris**
Amelia Earhart**
Alberto Santos-Dumont**
Félix du Temple de la Croix**
Alexander Mozhaisky**
Charles Lindbergh**
Richard Pearse**
John Stringfellow**
Wright Brothers*Methods of Attaining Flight
**
Aviation**
Aircraft**
Balloon**
Glider**
Helicopter**
Instrument Flight Rules**
Model aircraft**
Ornithopter**
Parachute**
Ultralight aviation**
Visual flight**
Visual Flight Rules* Other topics
**
Levitation
