” For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you long to return” – Da Vinci.
For fairly gravity influenced animals, mankind is particularly obsessed with flight. We see birds of prey soaring in the updrafts, bats flapping and foxes gliding…………and bugs? All of the above.
Bugs fly in different ways, depending on their requirements. It was once thought that the humble Bumblebee was incapable of flight, and yet they flew. Butterflies glide and flap their large wings to ‘flutter’ gently from place to place. While Dragonflies can beat their wings up to 90 times per second and have delicate control to chase and catch fast moving insects. And beetles clatter around, varying from highly aerodynamic, to those that probably shouldn’t have gotten off the ground.
We use their designs to get in the air, actually and by proxy. Their different methods for achieving flight inspiring us to improve our own designs, with their help we are creating safer and more efficient methods to travel by air. And now there are more ‘practical’ applications for the model airplane.
For more info on flying like an insect, checkout these guys.
And randomly: Bumblebees.
Sofie A Welvaert 
