Bionik der Flugfeder

Bionik of flight feathers Large soaring landbirds depend on cross‐country flights as cheaply as possible. The migration of eastern European White Storks to southerly wintering areas with a length of more than 8000 km as well as the foraging flights of vultures over huge areas are physiologically only possible thanks to optimized soaring flight capabilities of the birds. The mechanisms to increase uplift and to reduce unwanted friction and vortex drags as presented here show that these adaptations are realized down to the microstructural level of the flight feathers. These are in particular: the airstream permeable structures along the feather shaft, the flow adaptive curvature of the feather profile and the shaping of the feather tip. These mechanisms serve a significant reduction of drag which was prerequisite to a successful development of the flight feather cascade. In conferred form they can be found also in technical missiles.