What Can A Maple Seed Teach A Helicopter About Flying?
(via Wikipedia) Perhaps you’ve never noticed this, or you don’t live near maple trees, but the seeds of maple trees fall ever so slowly and, depending on the impact of the breeze or wind force, can be carried for miles before they land. A recently published study in the journal Science shows us why this happens and the significance it might have for future aerospace technology. The researchers, David Lentink from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and Michael H. Dickinson, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), studied the fall of the maple seed by creating a robot of the seed and measuring its flow in oil, instead of air, through a tank. Then, to verify the results, 32 specimens of real maple seeds were studied as they spun freely in a wind tunnel. Both observations concluded that the maple seeds produce a tornado-like vortex at the front edge of the seed that creates extra lift, slowing the descent of the spinning seed as it falls. The researchers noted that the
