= Living Things That Fly There is a wide variety of living things on Earth that are capable of flying. The most obvious of these species are birds, some small rodents, and insects. The question that often has us scratching our heads is...how do these living things soar and glide through the air with such ease? We've all tried it once or twice; a jump from a tree or object of similar height with a flap of our arms to see if there is some possible way that we too can be capable of such an amazing ability. But why is it that we never succeed and other living organisms do? The answer lies in the differences between our anatomies. We as humans are simply not built for flight. We are ideally structured for standing, walking or running, while flight is just not part of our repertoire. We do not look like birds, rodents or insects, so why would we be able to do the same things that they can? But exactly what is it about this group of living things that allows them to take advantage of the properties of air and forces of flight in order to keep themselves in the sky for prolonged periods of time? htt steacherspayteachers tore/ TeacherBirds: Any living or non-living thing trying to take flight will have two forces working against them: gravity and drag. Gravity is the force that the Earth exerts on all things pulling them back towards its centre. Gravity will always pull anything that has a mass down towards it. The very attempt to take flight defies the laws of gravity. Drag, on the other hand, is caused by air resistance which acts directly against the direction that the object is trying to move. Think of drag as a person trying to walk south down a busy New York sidewalk against the flow of all other pedestrians who are walking north. The more people walking north, the greater the force acting on the person trying to go south. Furthermore, the larger the person who is trying to walk south, the harder it will be to cut through the crowd going north. Birds also have two forces that help them in their attempts to take flight. The reason they are successful every time is that the sum of the forces working in favour of them taking flight always outweigh the sum of the forces working against them. The two forces that help birds fly are lift and thrust. To begin their flight, birds must first generate enough momentum using their small legs as well as the flapping motion of their wings to move themselves forward. Once they have generated a significant amount of thrust birds will tilt the angle of their wings up into the direction they / are moving to get lifted off the ground. Their wings will catch enough | wind underneath to push them up into the sky; however, their wings 43 cannot simply stay in this position to fly. They must continuously flap their wings in a forward and rotating motion to push wind behind them\ and continue thrusting through the air. htt seacherspayteachers.com/ Store/Teacher-Much like a human would do to propel themselves forward while swimming. They can switch between moments of effort where they flap and thrust and moments of rest where they glide. It should be noted that when they stop flapping they will inevitably begin to fall back towards the ground slowly. In order to continue flying, birds must consistently be generating enough force to overcome gravity and drag. The shape of a bird's wings and the way it moves them are the main factors that allow them to achieve flight. Birds also have large lungs to accommodate the amount of oxygen required to continuously flap their wings for thrust. They also have strong wing muscles, and light, hollow bones that keep their overall mass and weight low. Bi id e1 I Rode: Most small rodents cannot actually fly; they may appear to be able to fly but in reality they are just gliding. These mammals usually have extra skin that extends between their arms and legs. The skin acts as a parachute that slows their descent to the ground. They cannot achieve lift from the ground the same way that birds do. They are only able to get themselves high in trees and then jump and glide down to the ground or onto their prey. Bats are the only mammal known to date that are able to fly and take of f into the air from a stationary position. Bats are considered the most efficient of all animals that fly. They use a slightly different wing motion than birds and insects in order to take flight and stay in the air. This system gives more lift per unit of energy used than that of birds or insects. Furthermore, their wings are made up of a very thin membrane with many tiny muscles running through them. These muscles can change the shape of their wing while they are in flight and contribute to their overall ability to take off, stay in the air, and fly with more precision. 14 Birds are capable of higher speeds, however, bats are much more agile, and efficient. Vi htt seacherspayteachers,com/Store/Teacher-Insects: The way insects fly differs from how birds and bats fly. While birds and bats get most of their lift from the downstroke of their wing movement, insects also get lift from their upstroke. Insects use the rapid movement of their wings in a figure eight motion to achieve flight. Some flies and wasps will flap their wings up to one thousand times per second! Unlike birds or bats, insects are capable of hovering in one place like a helicopter. When insects want to fly forward they tilt their bodies down and forward and when they want to hover they pull their head back and upwards. It really is quite amazing how the insect wing although it has no muscle or bone inside and is made of really thin material, can still lift their oversized bodies. Overall, insects achieve flight mainly from the design of their wings and how rapidly they move them. So why can't people fly? It's quite simple really; people do not have the right physical proportions for flight. For one thing, we do not have the proper airfoil shape in our arms like the wings of birds, bats or insects. Secondly, the ratio of weight between our arms and bodies is not conducive to successful flying ability. In other words, our bodies are too heavy for our arms to achieve or sustain flight. Furthermore, our muscles are not meant to produce rapid arm movement the way a bird, bat or insect does with its wings in order to thrust through the air. In short, humans just don't have the proper anatomy for flight. htt seacherspayteachers.com/ Store/Teacher-ae Non-Living Things That Fly Humans have been obsessed with finding a way to master the skies for years! The Wright brothers were the first to achieve sustainable flight with the invention of the first successful airplane in 1903. Prior to this, other inventors and intellects were successful in creating hot air balloons that drifted through the air and gliders that allowed people to descend slowly from areas of high elevation to low elevation. There is now a wide array of man-made machines that fly including but not limited to: airplanes, helicopters, rockets, and hot air balloons. The article will go on to discuss each of these devices and how they each use unique methods to achieve flight. Airplanes: Airplanes achieve flight in much of the same way as living things do. There are three main factors that contribute to the flight of airplanes: thrust, angle of attack and the airfoil wing shape. When a plane takes off from the ground it must begin by giving itself enough momentum to lift off into the air. The plane gains momentum by thrusting itself in a forward direction using its propellers or jets which are usually attached to the wings. The propeller, which is powered by a jet, grabs the air in front of the plane and pushes it backward which in turn drives the body of the plane forward. With just thrust, the plane will move forward on its wheels but it will not get of f the ground. INTAKE COMPRESSION COMBUSTION Air init! fteachers.com/Store/Teacher~~ have an angle of attack. This means that the front of the wings get >» In order to lift off the ground the wings of the plane must tilted slightly upwards to allow the rushing air to catch the bottom part of the wing. The airfoil shape of the wing forces the air moving over top of the wing to move faster than the air on the bottom of the wing. Since Bernoulli's principle states that faster moving air has a lower pressure than slower moving air the plane begins to get lifted off the ground because the higher pressured air starts to push up against the bottom of the wing. gai the airplane achieving flight. As the plane is ascending it will keep this angle of attack until it reaches the desired altitude. When the plane is finally at the height it needs to be, it can decrease the angle of attack. The airfoil shape of the wing will continue to maintain balance amongst the downward (gravity) and upward (lift) forces acting on the plane, while the propellers and jets continue pulling the airplane forward through the air. Helicopters: A helicopter's flight differs from that of an airplane in that the wings or | blades of the helicopter are in constant motion while the wings of an airplane remain still. Helicopters also use the airfoil shape for their 17 blades to take advantage of Bernoulli's principle which, as stated earlier explains that faster moving air has lower air pressure than slower moving | / air. htt seacherspayteachers.com/ Store/Teacher-me «. helicopter's blades begin to rotate because of the engine ~~ that they are attached to. Once they begin spinning they cut through the air with an angle of attack that begins pushing air downwards. Once the blades begin to move at a fast enough speed they generate enough downward force that eventually lifts the helicopter into the air. Each individual blade can be adjusted to change the angle of attack which will allow the helicopter to either raise itself further into the air, stay hovering in the same place, or descend back down towards the ground. You may have noticed that most helicopters have two sets of spinning blades. The main ones that are at the top of the helicopter and a secondary set that is usually attached to the tail of the helicopter. The purpose of the tail blades is to counteract the spinning motion of the main blades. They allow the helicopter to remain stable and controllable in the air. They spin in the opposite direction of the main blades to oppose their massive force and to maintain fine control over the machine. If it were not for the tail propellor the body of the helicopter would spin in the opposite direction as the main blades. The tail propellors are also responsible for giving the helicopter the thrust it needs to move forward or in reverse through the air. The helicopter acts a lot like an insect in order to move forward or backward; when moving forward it will tilt its nose down and point its main blades in the direction it wants to go. When it goes backward it pulls its nose upward tilting the main blades towards the tail of the machine. forward or backwar htt seacherspayteachers,com/ Store/Teacher.Unlike airplanes and helicopters which exploit | Specific properties of air and basic physics | concepts, rockets work differently. Rockets focus their attention on thrust which allows them to be propelled through the air. In reality, rockets are not truly “flying” they are simply being pushed through the Earth's atmosphere by propellants which consist of fuel and oxygen. The main component that allows a rocket to reach its destination is the amount of thrust that can be produced from the propellants that it uses. Rockets are made of light metal and aluminum contents from harm but at the same time are light in weight. The lighter a rocket is, the easier it will be to propel it into space. Propellants are either in solid form or liquid form and sometimes a combination of the two types is used. A significant amount of a rocket's weight is the Bee MU nEN SS POCEs fuel and fuel chambers that it carries. For this reason rockets are made in sections so that as different fuel chambers get used up, they can be dropped back down to Earth to reduce the effect of gravity on the rocket. In terms of flying, rockets do not really fly unless they break | through Earth's atmosphere and into space where the weight of the air is significantly less compared to here on Earth. At this point rockets will 19 continue to float in the direction they were propelled until they reach their destination (Newton's First Law). ih htt seacherspayteachers.com/ Store/Teacher-Hot Air Balloons: Hot air balloons use very basic principles to achieve flight. Knowing that hot air is lighter than cold air is at the very heart of hot air balloon flight. Essentially, hot air can float within cool air as long as it is captured within a certain area; hence, the envelope or balloon part of the hot air balloon. As hot air is shot up into the envelope, the temperature of the air inside the balloon increases and begins to become lighter than the air surrounding it and the balloon starts to rise into the air taking anything attached to it with it. In order to descend there is a section at the very top of the balloon that is under the control of the pilot and allows him to let hot air out which in turn brings the balance between the air inside the balloon and outside the balloon closer together and slowly brings the hot air balloon back towards the ground. If the pilot would like to ascend again he simply closes the hole on the top of the envelope and shoots more hot air into the balloon using a burner. Hot air balloons are limited in terms of being a reliable mode of transportation since they can only travel in the direction that the winds are going. htt steacherspayteachers tore/ Teacherfa Living and Non-Living | Things That Fly Worksheet 1. List three living and three non-living things that are capable of flying. 2. What are the two forces that will always work against anything trying to take flight? 3. What makes living things and non-living things successful in their attempts to take flight? 21‘ao. 4. Explain how birds, bats, insects, airplanes, rockets, and hot —— air balloons achieve flight. Keep your answers brief and group similar things together. 5. Why can't humans fly? 6. What are the similarities and differences between how living and non- living things fly? htt seacherspayteachers,com/Store/Teacher-