Can Flies Only Fly in Straight Lines?
WouterMany people think flies can only fly in straight lines, but they are actually more aerodynamic than you might think. Their wing design makes it difficult for predators to predict their flight path. Rather than flap their wings hard like birds, flies use a technique known as zig-zag flying. This makes it difficult for a bird to get a missile lock on them.
Houseflies do not fly in straight lines. They swoop in the air, circling around their nests. To travel further, flies must roll over or loop-the-loop to get to the ceiling. In addition, flies cannot fly upside-down. They tend to fly in squares because they’ve learned to avoid walls, and they know they’ll hit a wall if they fly straight. For this reason, you’ll see them in the corner of a room or on lamps.
Increasing wingbeat frequency provides a safety margin for critical manoeuvres such as saccadic turns or predator evasion. An analytical model of wing damage control allows for the regulation of three parameters related to kinematics: stroke frequency, body roll, and body roll. By adjusting these parameters, scientists can develop a bioinspired wing damage control algorithm.
To understand the physics of how flying in a straight line works, you must understand how aircraft travel in the real world. There is no straight line from origin to destination, and many pilots optimize their flight path by flying through a large number of airports in the route. This allows for a low probability of an emergency.
