How do birds fly?

Question

This is what I have: the air above wings travels farther and faster than the air below, the air below wings is denser and pressure is greater, air below wings creates lift

Can someone explain this to me more clearly? I'm reading this and I sort of get it, but I still don't understand why/how..

Answer 1

Their bones are hallow. That makes them lighter and they flap their wings and the air pressure pushes them up.

Can I pretty please with a cherry on top have 10 points.

Answer 2

What you have stated is called Bernoulli's principle; it is a common explanation for why birds and airplanes fly. It is also wrong! Wings, because of their inclination to the airstream, impart downward momentum to the incident air, which creates lift. Bird wings have the bones near the leading edge, and the rest of the wing trails somewhat loosely from the bones. On the wing downstroke, the wing motion pushes the air downwards and backwards. On the upstroke, the air would be pushed upward, but the flexibility of the wing reduces this effect, leaving mostly the backward push, which propels forward motion.

Bernoulli's principle is a valid physical effect, arising from the conservation of energy: if the kinetic energy of an airstream is increased because of its motion, the potential energy (appearing as pressure to the side) must be reduced. This effect is used in aircraft to operate the airspeed indicator, which measures the pressure difference between incident air (collected by the pitot tube) and the slipstream air (through the static vent). If Bernoulli were the reason that an airplane could fly, it would be obvious that an airplane could not fly upside down -- which, of course, they can do quite nicely.

Answer 3

yeah that and bird bones are hallow. bird dont weight much.

as with the wing shape. look the a side view of a plan wing notice how the bottom is sort of flat while the top is sort of domes. this creates a longer travel distance over the wing. now when the wind splits from hitting the wing like u said the top travels further then under the wing this creating low pressure above the wing. once the plane is going fast enuff the plane will leave the groud once lift created is greater then the weight of the plane.

Answer 4

That is a tremendously important question! Ever since there were people, people have watched birds fly and wondered how they did it, wondering also if they too could fly. Only in the 20th century have people been able to build machines that can fly through the air (after carefully studying birds). The birds however do a better job in many ways than we do with our airplanes.

If a bird is just gliding (or "soaring"), that is, not flapping its wings, it flies in pretty much the same way that an airplane flies. The wings push air down, so by Newton’s third law the air must push them up. Partly, the push comes from the angle the wings are held at and partly from the curvature of the wings. The air travels faster above the bird’s wing than it does below, and this makes the pressure lower above the wing. Here’s a nice page about such airfoils.

Birds are more complicated than that, and so are airplanes. Some energy source is required to overcome the unavoidable drag of pushing through the air, to lift the bird or airplane up to flying height, and to give the bird or airplane kinetic energy. Airplanes use propellers or jet engines. Birds use strong muscles in their breasts to flap their wings. In addition, bird wings are hinged, while airplane wings are riged and fixed. The bird uses its strong muscles to push its wings downwards, pushing air downwards, generating lift, and, if the wings are angled properly, also thrust. The big problem then becomes not pushing air back upwards when the bird moves its wings up for the return stroke.

This is accomplished with the hinged wings. On the downstroke, the wing is fully extended, offering its full surface area for pushing air downwards. On the upstroke, the wing folds up, presenting less area. It is a lot like rowing with oars. The oar pushes the water behind the boat on the power stroke, but must be removed from the water and, ideally, turned 90 degrees so it does not push air or water forwards on the return stroke.

Birds have a lot of adaptations for flight. Their bones are hollow and light, but strong, They have light feathers which catch the air. They can fold up their wings when they are not in use. Their lungs are extra efficient at extracting oxygen from the air (we huff and puff when running, and flying is much harder!). They eat huge amounts of high-energy food, relative to their body weight.

People go on and on about how birds fly, and it is indeed amazing that they do. For more information, why not stop by the library, or ask a teacher or professor. Since you are at the University of Illinois, you might want to talk to CJ Pennycuick here, who wrote a book and a program on bird flight performance. Here’s a link to his program (it’s kind of technical, and I haven’t tried it out -- it may be of more interest to people studying bird migration and the ability of birds to survive long trips than to someone interested in the physics of bird flight.).

Better yet, why not go out and watch some birds flying!

Answer 5

What you have is right. Let us make this simple. Hold out a piece of paper above your head in front of you. Let the paper go while blowing air into it. The paper or tissue fly for a moment. You apply dense air and greater pressure when you blow air to that paper. In the case of the birds they make dense air and apply pressure on the air by moving their wings. Their spread out wings collect the dense and pressurize air below.

Answer 6

the shape of the wing is what does it
creating a lower pressure area above which causes LIFT

imaginge if you will jet skies on the ocean

goi faster enugh and you can stay up and skid accross the water

same with the air, but the medium is same above and below

Answer 7

nope, you are flip over by this. wings shape called airfoil. air bellow wing were faster than air above. why? because wing upper shape were curving so air will travel farther and longer on that. the other side below wing surface were flat so air travel shorter and that makes it faster than above.

those physics activities creates physic reaction below the wing. air that flow faster have more compression than air flow slower. that give power to air to lift the wing depend on speed of the air. more speed means more air hit on wing surface and it means more compression below the wing and more lifting power on the wing.

but, thats only happen on air plane.

birds can fly because of combination between bones (it's light and and strong), muscle (birds muscle were strong and have good endurance), feather (this feather are very-very complex). when you see hawks flay on circle without moving their wings that because of thermal heat that makes air going up. those air catch by wings and gives it lifting power.

Answer 8

Birds can fly because their wings.The air goes underneath the wings,causing a slip stream of air.The air makes them rise up up and soar!

Answer 9

They just flap there wings and fly

Answer 10

with there wings that's how