You're the last person I'd expect to make a Skyrim joke. Good job catching me off guard

Action Lab: Bird. My Eyes: Bug.

the shots of the owl flying through the helium bubbles was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool

I think the big breakthrough that aircraft engineers came up with was that they needed to produce multiple specialized air foils to do all that a bird can accomplish with its flexible organic wings. They couldn't design a mobile flapping structure that was sturdy enough to stand up to all the various forces it would endure, so they split it up between a fixed solid wing to hold most of the weight, smaller wings that could be manipulated to steer, and a third set that could provide thrust by spinning in a vertical circle instead of trying to reciprocate.

Another big thing to realise about birds is a lot of the body movement is also to keep the head stable - I've never properly researched it but I reckon that stability is key in the brain being able to process the environment and to make adjustments for controlled flight. Even when pigeons walk, their head stays stationary, their body moves forward leaving the head beyjnd, then the head snaps forward and locks in place ahead of the body again as the body steps forward. The hummingbird clip shows this fascinating behaviour really nicely.

Most large aircraft tailplanes not only don't provide lift, they are actually designed to produce a downward force, and you just manipulate how much downward force it is creating.

I'm really fascinated by the blend of biology and technology you present here in your bionic bird drone. It certainly gives fresh perspective on flight and the ways we can learn from nature's engineering marvels.

In the canard wing configuration, the horizontal stabilizer contributes to lift as well making for a very efficient airframe design. In the more common wing configuration, the horizontal stabilizer is located near the rear and acts as an inverted wing actually reducing lift in exchange for flight stability.

I desperately need me one of those, this looks so fun

It's an Ornithopter

The memes, the bird videos, the robot, everything was perfect in this video

he lives at an awesome place for sure

This is pretty cool! Back in the 70’s I had a wind up flappy yellow bird. It was lightweight plastic and made by a French toy company. It was quite simple by comparison, and had no radio control. It was a simple line of flight toy. This… this is by far a vast improvement!

I love how you describe the drone "majestic" with that background that most of the viewers (like me) will never experience in real life!

Wow this is one of the few products I’ve seen on this channel that is legitimately incredible.

You did the "birds are CIA listening devices" thing...😂...respect

Wow, what a vivid memory you’ve brought back for me. As a kid having watched A Bug’s Life and the scene where they build a “bird plane”, I’ve wondered why we haven’t made planes that fly like birds.

The weight on a bird's tail is in lieu of a vertical stabilizer. If the bird rolls the tail to the right, the bird yaws to the left. If there was no air pressure on the tail then it would provide only horizontal flight stability but not yaw stability. Most of the forward thrust of a bird, particularly larger birds such as hawk and eagle, is in the wrist and primary feathers. The secondaries attached to the arms provide some lift but little or no thrust. Basically the bird *swims* through the air scooping air with its hands then closing the fist and rapidly moving hands forward then opening again. This power cycle is long and deliberate, the recovery stroke is quick. This maintains a reasonably high duty cycle of providing thrust. Slotted primary feathers allow less resistance to air flowing between feathers on the upstroke.

The view of the mountains from that park is beautiful

1:22 "It gives a feeling you are watching a real bird fly" * Calm music * * Free falling to its demise*

You can see the snow covered peaks in the background!

Yo, that opening was LEGENDARY! I laughed so hard 😂

Random Trivia: In mine language words for flight, bird, and aeroplane are all connected to oneanother (same stem): * flight - lend / lendama * aeroplane - lennuk * bird - lind * ornithopter - linnuk (in earlier meaning, in the folk epic, this is name of mythological ship)

That old footage of the mechanical bird is quite amazing. I wonder when that was filmed? That's a very well constructed device for it's time.

dragonflys from dune would go so hard

that was DEFINITELY not expected

It was an extremely interesting video. I must agree, the bionic bird is truly majestic. hope to see future drones implement tail lift mechanisms in to design considerations.

Things I didn’t know I needed.

i love the part at @1:22 its like a batman shot with out the moon but with the moutains u can see thru the bird it matches the motutains then he dives

I really appreciate this channel for giving me such fascinating information in a concise and entertaining format.

Good one. Clever with the scale catching the air. The owl and tip vortices was fascinating.

Everything we try to do with technology, from medicine to engineering to softwares, is just trying to replicate something found in nature.

I love the stock footage of a woman feeding a single french fry to a flock of gulls

Definitely one of the best science channels!!!

I would like to point out that we have had cheap wood/plastic spring powered toy that could fly like this 35 years ago.... the wing is made of a thin piece of plastic so it can deform differently when it flaps up and down. The spring run through the body and you wine it up at the end. the designs are usually dragonfly or butterfly

That intro!!!!

I can't wait to see a drone modeled after a peregrine falcon that can dive at 240 MPH.

One cool thing about bird flight (or at least undulating flight) is that rather than just moving their wings directly up and down, they create more of a figure-8 pattern to reduce drag on their upstroke.

This is his best video yet!!!

Last person I expected to see was Ralof. 😂

This video was actually sponsored by government birds

A flapping drone is called an 'ornithopter.' Not a lot of people make or fly these but they are fascinating.

While everyones fixated on the nice drone, im here being amazed at the amount of detail your camera can pick up. I mean your hair is so freaking detailed!

As someone who has chronic severe muscle spasms I always wonder if various animals get muscle cramps/spasms. Imagine mid flight your wing cramps up.

I wonder how long the battery lasts

Being able to quickly change directions is useful when flying this kind of drone into forests or within places with many light or electric poles.

I think it's important to note that the tail of planes is an airfoil but it just pushes down instead of up. It does this because the center of mass is placed in front of the center of lift for stall characteristics. A plane with canards can have them create lift and avoid a tail. A flying wing design like a b2 doesnt even have a tail.

That Skyrim reference tho 😂

the "Oh no I know too much" got me 😆

Also, bird wing has something else many don't realize. If you will try to reproduce it with a plastic film wing you will fail. It's the difference in air resistance when moving the wing up versus moving it down

I've seen plenty of insect drones, but never a bird before. Intriguing.

I was hoping you'd discuss efficiency! Your videos never stop being neat.

Huge win for birds is they are so much quieter.

Shout out to the clip of Cape Town’s Table Mountain at the end 💛

Helicopter can change direction almost as fast as a bird, as long as you are ok with potentially breaking it, because it doesn't have lift only trust created by the lift of the propellers, minus a barrel roll due to having only 2 vectors of thrust, but a drone can do all maneuvers because it is a quadcopter, if you want to "yaw" in place just turn off two of the engines, the two counterbalancing said rotation pitch and tilt come from slowing down two of the engines, and for barrel roll you just need some momentum and to turn two of the engines in reverse while boosting the other two. Some clever math stronger engines and you can make any other maneuver you want at the cost of battery lifespan.

In general, reciprocating motion (e.g. flapping, running) is less efficient than constant motion (e.g. spinning propeller or turbine, or a spinning car wheel). The reciprocation causes unnecessary body motions as the CG shifts, wasting energy. The exception is if the hotel load (energy needed to maintain motion) is significantly lower than the minimum energy your propulsion source can output (or output efficiently). In that case, the reciprocating motion can have an advantage because you can simply stop it, until it's needed again. e.g. An albatross glides for long periods of times, only occasionally flapping to regain altitude. Whereas constant motion generally needs to continue moving even if the propulsion is unneeded. Jet engines burn unnecessary fuel during the descent phase keeping themselves spinning at low or idle speed (where they are not very efficient), when the potential energy the plane is losing by descending is usually enough to keep it flying. This also crops up with hybrid cars like the Prius when you're hypermiling. Keeping the engine running at low RPM to maintain 60 mph is inefficient - it burns a lot more fuel for the energy provided, than if you run the (gas) engine at around 3500 RPM. So the trick hypermilers have come up with is to shut the engine off by coasting (thus dropping the hotel load to zero). And when the speed gets too low, use the electric motor for a short burst (concentrating the energy usage into a short dynamic load) to get it back up speed and coast again. When the battery gets low from these bursts of usage, the gas engine turns on and operates at its most efficient RPM to recharge the battery. These long periods of zero hotel load + short burst of dynamic load whose energy is provided by running the engine at its most efficient RPM, results in better fuel economy than moving at constant speed.

Reminds me of the ornithopters that could be gotten from science museum gift shops. But, with added RC controls.

This is the greatest intro I have ever seen

Bro where is this man those mountains in the background look beautiful

Action lab doesn’t understand but when u post u brighten up people day I just want to say thanks for that hf

Very brave of you to explain how a wing generates lift on the internet. Well done! Btw @5:10 the tailplane of most aircraft actually produces a *down* force.

Part of the problem with mimicking birds was that people didn't even realise that birds don't just flap their wings up and down. The wing stroke usually performs some sort of figure 8 path. So when they built up and down wing flapping mechanisms nothing much happened

Well in the Flintstones they use Pterodactyl as airplanes.

Bro not the Skyrim "Hey you, you are finally awake" scene!! That really had me laughing bro.

Hey, @The Action Lab, I've got one for you. It's called the Faraday Paradox. Apparently, if you rotate a magnet and conductor together, a small electric field can be measured between the edges of the conductor and the axis of rotation even though the conductor and magnet are relatively stationary. I have two thoughts on the subject: 1) Earth is a magnet, and 2) Oxygen is highly paramagnetic. There are plenty of theories out there that attribute the phenomenon to absolute rotation. I just want to know if it works in a vacuum.

your wings design is soo gooood.

I love the design of the wings, it looks more like a dragon fly or wasp. Like they say, it's best to look to nature when you want to find beauty and elegance. Cool stuff.

Those mountains are beautiful!

Minor nitpick: When you weighed the air pushing down from the flappy bird drone some of the energy would have transferred to your fingers and so the weight ought to have been somewhat greater had the drone been able to fly unsupported. Still a good demonstration of the difference in propulsion force depending on angle, though!

I wish you reviewed in further detail the robot. It's fascinating!

Im excited that this is now available....would like it a little smaller.

I'm a bit surprised that you didn't mention the word ornithopter once in this video about ornithopters.

Great video! didn't expect the skyrim joke lol but i'm not surprised.

The angle of attack of the wing does not force air downward. The low pressure above the wing sucks the wing upwards. Bernoulli's principle.

a dragon-fly version of this would be realy awesome to work with !

The owl flight footage from the Royal Veterinary College is very aesthetic! The vortices remind me of the Fluid Dynamics video by @PhysicsGirl and @3b1b.

the ornithopter wings are more like an insects than a birds, because a bird has an 'elbow' and most of the secondary feathers are on the fore-arm equivalent and the main primary feathers from the hand/finger equivalent, while the insect like uses only a shoulder really.

I know this isn't a product review but you gotta include a link to that drone!

A video on thrust vectoring in this continuation will also be really good

if only the technology can be open source that huge innovation will be made in this field

The owl also hooted with a high pitch voice.

I have seen a few good ornithopter videos. I think they look so cool flying.

Now this is a very good practical demonstration of heavier than air flight.

FESTO has some impressive wing flapping drones, like a seagull, butterflies and a flying fox

This is the kind of video that I want more emoticon responses for! I love this! Thank you for sharing 🤟

Attach some strings on the tail. It will look beautiful

I love the fascinating videos on your channel! 💛💛💛

Hummingbirds basically hover almost exactly the way humans tread water. In fact, I'd wager that a human could fly underwater exactly the same way a bird does in the air! It would be very similar to a stingray. That would be a VERY cool experiment!

"Throwing" air down isn't the word I'd use. I'd use deflecting. Certain falcons and coastal birds can essentially hover in air without flapping because they're angled directly into the wind and their wings deflect enough air down such that they don't need to flap for extended periods of time. It's not a perfect hover like you'd see with hummingbirds or dragonflies, which do achieve hovering by flapping, but the result is effectively the same. The bird's position, especially elevation, doesn't change too much and is at the mercy of the wind.

It would be nice to know how power usage compares to drones.

i had a toy like this when i was kid more than 10 years ago it was called "Dragonfly Flytech" made by Gig, it was the best toy i ever had, unfortunately you couldn't really fly it with any wind

Flapping wing design has good maneuvrability.

0:24 Skyrim entrance, nics. >>Je aime la façon dont une petite oiseau robot peut voler.

Love these prototypes. There is a team that made a quite large flapping wing contraption size of a large dog. And they show it here on YT somewhere. Unfortunately it needs bit more tech advances to reduce weight and get more strength. By the way tail of an airplane does actually provide lift but downward. (unless the COG and COL are very close, but that is dangerous due to instability it would cause) If it sounds wasteful to you, well it kinda is. Canard config does use both to lift up, but introduces another bunch of issues. So most designers just avoid it. Since it is pricey endeavor already. So yup it's all 'bout the money it's all 'bout the dum dum da da dum dum........

Depends on how fast you want to go, but people got another option - hide wings and use different trust then. Wings will be important in urban environment, since all you need is thin foil and power of air/wind to generate trust without too much noise that hi speed engines do, if we fly in the near future, it may be perfect way for quiet take off. Basically major problem for why there are no flying cars is this - noisy and hard take off. First will come EV drones with many propellers(less noise than few), if those propellers are quiet enough it may not come tho.

Re: bird tails adding lift? Actually, efficient airplanes do generate net lift with the tail and even with the elevator. Modern fighters actually have higher deflections on the tail than the main wing in straight and level flight.

i really want to see drones get as maneuverable and precise as birds, something you could have with you at a park that people wouldn't bat an eye at until it lands on your shoulder

the question in the title remains. wish you would've drawn a comparison between the energy used to thrust/lift and the amount of force created between flapping and spinning drones

Seems like the wing has a stiff rod with semi-flexible material to act as feathers. Birds have joints in their wings. Maybe a combination of bionic bird with strandibeast wings would help.

The most advanced technologies are the ones that most closely mimic nature and natural processes