Is it true that due to the law of gravity that a bumble bee

Question

Is it true that due to the law of gravity that a bumble bee should not

actually be able to fly?

due to the size and weight of its body in relation to its wings??

????

...

Answer 1

Basically the bees-wing motion is very rapid, complex and varies in geometry as it moves. (the wing tips adopt a concave/convex shape through the cycle). This creates a chaotic turbulent pattern of vortices around the insect.Lift is produced when the speed of the vortices above its body exceeds that below. Basically the bee is using inertial feedback from its adductor muscles (very rapidly!) to navigate a sure path through its self created turbulence. This of course would not be feasible for a ffixed wing or helicopter type craft.

For the true aristocrats of chaotic turbulent flight you should consider the dazzling aerodynamics of dragonflies!

Answer 2

yeah apparently its wings aren't big enough to support its body weight. what do scientists know.

Answer 3

According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumblebee should be incapable of flight, as it does not have the capacity (in terms of wing size or beat per second) to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading necessary.  It is believed that the calculations are based upon a simplified linear treatment of oscillating aerofoils.  However, the method assumes small amplitude oscillations without flow separation and ignores the effect of dynamic stall.

Dynamic stall is an airflow separation inducing a large vortex above the wing which briefly produces several times the lift of the aerofoil itself and more sophisticated aerodynamic analysis shows that bumblebee wings encounter dynamic stall in every oscillation cycle.

Answer 4

The Bumblebee uses cleaver aerodynamics to overcome its limited wingspan. The rear wings of the bee cannot generate sufficient lift from 'still' air passing over them. However, the forewings rotate to generate a vortex in front of the rear-wings. The rear wings generate their aerodynamic lift from this vortex and, thus, the Bumblebee can fly.

Thus, to answer your question - it is true that due to the law of gravity that a Bumblebee should not actually be able to fly! Nevertheless, the bee uses complex aerodynamics to overcome its lack of conventional wing lift capacity!

Answer 5

No, apparently it isn't.  There's a story that a scientist tried to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation one time and figured out that it shouldn't be able to fly.  Apparently some of his assumptions were wrong.