Anatomy of a Bird’s Wing
(From Walker’s Aerial Navigation)
Flight of a Bird
Birds fly in one of three ways. The most familiar bird flight is by a rapid wing movement which has been called oar-like, but which is precisely equivalent to the usual movement of the arms of a man in swimming. The edge of the wing moves forward, cutting the air; on the return stroke the leading edge is depressed so as to present a nearly flat surface to the air and thus propel the bird forward. A slight downward direction of this stroke serves to impel the flight sufficiently upward to offset the effect of gravity. Any man can learn to swim, but no man can fly, because neither in his muscular frame nor by any device which he can attach thereto can he exert a sufficient pressure to overcome his own weight against as imponderable a fluid as air. If air were as heavy as water, instead of 700 times lighter, it would be as easy to fly as to swim. The bird can fly because of the great surface, powerful construction, and rapid movement of its wings, in proportion to the weight of its body. But compared with the rest of the animal kingdom, flying birds are all of small size. Helmholz considered that the vulture represented the heaviest body that could possibly be raised and kept aloft by the exercise of muscular power, and it is understood that vultures have considerable difficulty in ascending; so much so that unless in a position to take a short preliminary run they are easily captured.
Every one has noticed a second type of bird flight—soaring. It is this flight which is exactly imitated in a glider. An aeroplane differs from a soaring bird only in that it carries with it a producer of forward impetus—the propeller—so that the soaring flight may last indefinitely: whereas a soaring bird gradually loses speed and descends.
In a Meteoric Shower