Meeting Abstract

84.4  Tuesday, Jan. 6  Sideways flying by phased wing flipping RISTROPH, L. G.*; BERMAN, G. J.; BERGOU, A. J.; WANG, Z. J.; COHEN, I.; Cornell University; Cornell University; Cornell University; Cornell University; Cornell University lgr24@cornell.edu

Insects are enviable flyers and are capable of unusual maneuvers, such as sideways flight. We introduce a new motion tracking technique that reveals how maneuvering fruit flies generate lateral forces in flight. During sideways flight, flies induce asymmetries between the right and left wing angles of attack just as the wings rapidly flip over. We propose a mechanism in which unbalanced drag forces on the wings produce lateral force. Remarkably, the intricate asymmetries in wing motion involved in this mechanism can be simply induced by flipping each wing at slightly different times. In fact, we measure that fruit flies employ more extreme wing rotation timing differences when undergoing more extreme lateral acceleration. This mechanism takes advantage of several unique features of flapping flight, including dynamic angle of attack, independent control of each wing, and the large amplitude arc-like trajectories of the wings.