Flight

For other uses, see (disambiguation)}}}.

Flight is the process by which an animal or object which is heavier than air achieves sustained movement either through the air by aerodynamically generating lift or aerostatically using buoyancy, or movement beyond earth's atmosphere, in the case of spacecraft.

Contents

1 Animal flight

1.1 In fiction

2 Mechanical flight
3 See also

Animal flight

A Herring Gull in flight

The most successful groups of living things that fly are insects, birds, and bats. Each of these groups' wings evolved separately from different structures. See also Bird flight.

Pterosaurs were a group of flying vertebrates contemporaneous with the dinosaurs.

Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. However, there are several gliding mammals which are able to glide from tree to tree using fleshy membranes between their limbs; some can travel hundreds of metres in this way with very little loss in height. Flying tree frogs use greatly enlarged webbed feet for a similar purpose, and there are flying lizards which employ their unusually wide, flattened rib-cages to the same end. Certain snakes also use a flattened rib-cage to fly, with a back and forth motion much the same as they use on the ground.

Flying fish can glide using enlarged wing-like fins, and have been observed soaring for hundreds of metres using the updraft on the leading edges of waves. It is thought that they evolved this ability to help them escape from underwater predators.

Most birds fly (see bird flight), with some exceptions. The largest birds, the ostrich and the emu, are earthbound, as were the now-extinct dodos, while the non-flying penguins have adapted their wings for use under water. Most small flightless birds are native to small islands, and lead a lifestyle where flight would confer little advantage. The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal in the world; its terminal velocity exceeds 370 km/h (199 mph) in a dive.

Among living animals that fly, the wandering albatross has the greatest wingspan, up to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet); the trumpeter swan and the great bustard compete for the greatest weight, at around 24 kilograms (38 pounds).

Among the many species of insects, some fly and others do not (See insect flight).

In fiction

Dumbo, the Disney-created elephant, employs his comically oversized ears as wings for flight.
Western dragons are depicted with wings.
Superman is a superhero in comic books, cartoons, and films; flight is among the various superpowers he is portrayed to obtain from the yellow rays of earth's sun. Most fictional comic book superheroes are said to fly by willpower rather than by telekinetically levitating themselves. Jean Grey of the X-Men is an exception who uses telekinesis to levitate slightly above ground. Storm of the X-Men flies by controlling the weather in her immediate vicinity.
Santa Claus has a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.
In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, Arthur Dent learns how to fly—the secret is being able to "fall and miss the ground".
Pegasus was a winged horse in Greek mythology. Pegasus appears in the 1980s film Clash of the Titans.

Mechanical flight: A Robinson R22 Beta helicopter

Mechanical flight

Mechanical flight is the use of any of a number of complex machines, called aircraft, to fly. Examples are aeroplanes, helicopters, autogyros, airships, balloons, and spacecraft. Gliders provide unpowered flight.

The most common form of mechanical flight is aeroplane flight. Several steps are involved:

See aviation history and First flying machine for the history of mechanical flight.