Bird Flight is miraculous. Abridged.

Bird flight has always fascinated me. As a boy I recall sitting in class, gazing out the window, yearning to soar like the birds. Despite my initial aspirations to join the NZ Airforce, even passing all the entry tests and being accepted, I eventually pursued a Science degree at university. However, the dream of flying never waned.

Humanity’s progress in aviation, though remarkable, pales in comparison to the wonder of birds and their feathered flight. Throughout recorded history, our insatiable curiosity about the natural world has driven us to understand and replicate its marvels. While birds effortlessly navigate the skies, we’ve resorted to rubbing sticks together to mimic the destructive power of lightning or constructing massive runways for our fixed-wing jumbo jets. Not to forget also, the huge crews necessary to maintain and keep them flying.

Despite a century of technological advancements, airplanes lack the grace of birds. The contrast is akin to comparing a child’s finger painting to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The ability to replicate the elegance of bird flight remains a distant goal, as scientists grapple with understanding the intricacies of avian motion.

The dream of human-powered flight, rooted in ancient Greek myths, has remained elusive. The limitations of our arm muscles make it impossible for us to achieve flight without sprouting wings of improbable proportions. Even brilliant minds like Leonardo da Vinci, though pioneering in their thinking, misunderstood the mechanics of bird flight.

The science of flight took a leap forward in 1799 when Sir George Cayley proposed a design with a separate power source for thrust and fixed wings for lift. The Wright brothers later achieved powered flight in 1903, managing a 40 metre separation from the ground, yet it deviated significantly from the natural elegance of bird flight.

Birds achieve lift through complex aerodynamics, guided by principles and mathematical formulas.  The intricate dance of forces on a bird’s wings has only recently been directly observed, thanks to technological advancements like David Lentink’s super-sensitive wind tunnel with high-speed cameras.

Despite our inability to emulate birds, we continue to learn from them. Each bird flies uniquely, perfectly tailored to its specific needs. The design of wings for high-speed flight, exemplified by swifts and peregrine falcons, showcases unparalleled lift and dexterity achieved through meticulous wing design. Swifts are the fastest birds ever recorded in level flight, reaching a maximum 171 km/h.  Peregrine falcons are twice as fast, but they reach these world-record speeds by dive-bombing, not flapping their wings. They have been clocked at 320 km/hr.

Hawks, masters of soaring, employ energy-saving techniques like thermal soaring and dynamic soaring. Observations from the 1920s led to the discovery of birds’ ability to catch rising columns of hot air, known as thermals. These techniques, along with slope soaring, have inspired innovations in aviation.

The unique design of bird wings, covered with feathers arranged like roof shingles, sets them apart from human-made aircraft. Feathers, consisting of microscopic moving parts, offer unparalleled flexibility and strength. Engineers, while striving for advancements, struggle to replicate this sophistication. Wings designed for high speed are long and thin. Such a design allows these birds to sustain high speeds for a long time. Probably the most familiar shape for a bird wing is that of a swift. The wings are streamlined and swept like the wings on a jet fighter, and for good reason. The swift spends eight hours per day nabbing insects midair, so it needs to make tight turns and sustain maximum speeds for long periods of time. Unlike jet fighters, which can burn up to 1460 litres of fuel per minute and may need to refuel after less than an hour, some birds, like the great snipe, can fly nonstop at speeds of 97 km/hr for 6,760 km.

Birds seamlessly navigate the sky, their wings constantly changing shape and direction. The hawk’s ability to soar in slow circles or the robin’s short, rounded wings for quick bursts of speed showcase the diversity of avian flight. These feats far surpass the capabilities of human-made aircraft.

Even the seemingly mundane aspects of birds, such as retractable feathers and self-healing abilities, defy replication by our technology. The intricate systems in place, from the breathing system to landing on tree branches, demonstrate the Creator’s wisdom.

As engineers push the boundaries of aircraft materials, they acknowledge the insurmountable challenge of duplicating the basic building block of bird wings—feathers. Under a microscope, you’ll discover a network of small branches (called barbules) evenly spaced in an interlocking, crisscross pattern. The branches connect to each other by a series of hooks and ridges. A single feather contains millions of these hooks (called barbicels).

Each hook is actually a moving joint. At the base of the hook is a hinge that helps the hook latch onto the corresponding ridge. This flexible design allows feathers to catch the air on the downstroke, but air passes through the feathers on the upstroke.

If the connections snap apart, the bird simply draws its beak through the feathers, and the hooks lock back into place, like a zipper. The bird must oil these joints to keep them from fraying. So, it rubs its beak on an oil gland at the base of its tail, and then spreads the oil through the feathers. How could flight evolve unless all these parts appeared together at the same time? Of course they didn’t evolve, they were designed to work together from the beginning.

The infinite depth and detail of God’s wisdom, evident in the design of birds, evoke humility and eternal praise. No matter how much mankind discovers, there will always be more to learn, and the Creator’s fingerprints are visible in the simple act of a songbird flapping its wings in our backyard. The quest to understand and replicate the miracles of bird flight continues, reminding us of the inherent beauty in the natural world.