Posts Tagged ‘just like a bird.’

A plane that lands like a bird

Friday, October 1st, 2010
Everyone knows what it’s like for an airplane to land: The slow maneuvering into an approach pattern, the long descent, and the brakes slamming on as soon as the plane touches down, which seems to just barely bring it to a rest a mile later. Birds, however, can switch from barreling forward at full speed to lightly touching down on a target as narrow as a telephone wire. Why can’t an airplane be more like a bird, asked MIT researchers, who have demonstrated a new control system that allows aRead More....