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Hi Nancy & All, June 13, 2015
I have no idea what the conventional wisdom is on such questions but
logically the significant unit of wind speed should not be in absolute units
(e.g.M/sec) but wing dimension/sec.
And for example, expressing wind speed as front wing spreads per second
(FWS/S), a Lep with a FWS of 15 cm would be expected to cope with an
absolute wind speed ten times as great as would a Lep with a FWS of 1.5 cm.
In addition, wing muscle performance would be expected to some function,
probably a linear function, of total wing area.
So larger Leps, with dimensions and strength in their corner, should
have good flight stability in conditions which would overwhelm sufficiently
smaller Leps.
Yt, DW, Kentville
----- Original Message -----
From: "nancy dowd" <nancypdowd@gmail.com>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2015 6:03 PM
Subject: [NatureNS] Tiger Swallowtail flying in strong wind- How?
> Friday was extremely windy here on L Torment. So windy that the
> Hummingbirds could not manage to hover or land on the perches of the
> feeder despite several attempts and the windfish was straight out
> horizontal most of the day. Such strong winds are not unusual at this
> location.
>
> What surprised me was watching a Tiger Swallowtail flapping merrily along
> in its up-and-down flight seemingly oblivious to the gales. I was only 6'
> from it, having a hard time holding a book's pages steady. I am not sure
> how the Swallowtail is able to fly in such windy conditions and looked
> online for answers. I only found some info on the tail helping
> aerodynamically but not much. Anyone here have any idea?
>
> Nancy
>
>
>
>
> -----
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