Posted on 11/24/2013 4:54:12 PM PST by BenLurkin
According to a news release from the American Physical Society, owls’ near noiseless wings could lead to stealthier aircraft. For owls, their specialized plumage gives them the ability to hunt and kill their prey in relative silence. Researchers believe that “silent owl technology” could improve the design of aircraft, wind turbines, and submarines.
(Excerpt) Read more at natmonitor.com ...
Silent Owl drones coming to a neighborhood near you....
Got divebombed by an owl one night when out walking our dog....didn’t realize what it was until it was past us. Spooky.
Wonderful plumage, the Norwegian Blue. All silent. Don’t move at all.
But still visible to radar, I’m afraid.
Who gives a hoot.
We have aircraft with wings that flap?!
That was my thought, too.
I no longer imagine they develop stealthy weapons for use on the enemy abroad.
I now believe they create weapons for use against the citizens in the United States.
I was night time paddling on a full moon on the Shenandoah river when that happened to me. I was calmly drifting with the current, and a BIG owl flew right across my kayak, just a couple feet off the water, at eye level.. It certainly caught my attention!
I guess he was just checking me out! What a hoot!
that's it...make those wind turbines even harder for eagles and other birds and bats to hear and sense
Yeah good luck with that…. Owls don’t have any noisy engine to alert one. The wing design and manner in which the feathering edges work during the flight beat all lend to the quiet nature of the owl’s travel.
Since our aircraft sleath is based on a radar signal being deflected and not seen.....I don’t see how a new wing design based on an Owls wing would be meaningfull .... Unless of course drone need to be silent as they spy on citizens....
Nay that would be silly /S
It was a great horned owl swooping down from high up in the trees like a lightning bolt. He plucked a 2-3' long snake from out of the newly cut cane field, and with one or two flaps of his wings, floated back up into the trees with his dinner.
The thing that utterly amazed me was the whole episode was utterly silent, and had my back been turned, it all would have unfolded and I'd have been none the wiser. The utter silence was so impressive, I now I'll never forget it...and yes, the silence, speed and economy of the owl's movements was both sublime and eerie...
Most likely he was after your dog. I read about a guy who was wearing a coonskin cap replica one night and an owl attacked his head, leaving some rather deep lacerations from the owl's talons. Don't know if the owl got the hat or not:)
So...how is this going to make airplanes stealthy? Nobody hears the wings when a plane flies by. They hear the engines. Silencing the WINGS of a fighter jet is like putting deodorant on Godzilla and thinking that nobody will notice him now as he breaths fire and kicks down buildings.
I mean maybe, MAYBE you could stretch it and say that studying the leading tips of the owl’s wings could help understand the leading edge wing friction when dealing with IR guided missiles. Well, probably not. But I tried.
What I REALLY smell is someone trying to get more funding to study owl wings, and this is a pitch to try to get the DOD purse open.
Doubt it...my dog is a Lab/Aussie mix....I think maybe just curious, though....I have heard of Eagles lifting kittens off decks...
What really makes owls quiet is that they fly very slowly.
I was walking past a pine tree in a small clearing one day, when I thought the Sun had gone behind a cloud — I looked up and not five feet over my head there was a HUGE great horned owl dropping out of the tree into a glide, blotting out the sky. There was absolutely no sound, in fact, I think I could hear a hole in the ambient sound where the owl was. He flew without a wing beat down across a small valley. He managed to alight in another pine tree without being spotted by the crows. Awesome.
There was a science-fiction author named Frank Herbert who wrote about aircraft designed to imitate birds - he called them “ornithopters,” I seem to remember .. he wrote several novels titled “Dune” ...
“Got divebombed by an owl one night.........”
Same here. I have a 40% hearing loss. The air was very still and I felt his wake before I saw him. Huge great horned owl.
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