One of the classic questions of"WHAT ... is the airspeed of a laden swallow in flight?"
And of course, someone has.
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"In order to maintain airspeed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?"
Actually, wrong. By comparing the European Swallow with bird species of similar body mass, we can estimate that the swallow beats its wings 18 times a second with an amplitude of 18 cm:
Species Body mass Frequency Amplitude Zebra Finch 13 g 27 Hz 11 cm European Swallow 20 g ≈ 18 Hz? ≈ 18 cm? Downy Woodpecker 27 g 14 Hz 29 cm Budgerigar 34 g 14 Hz 15 cm
Check out the full article at Style.org.
Or ... you could go with the original research!
Now that I think about it, I must have posted this once before. But what the heck, it's worth repeating. :-)
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