Wingtip Vortices - Formation Flight

Formation Flight

Migratory birds take advantage of each others' wingtip vortices by flying in a V formation so that all but the leader are flying in the upwash from the wing of the bird ahead. This upwash makes it easier for the bird to support its own weight, reducing fatigue on migration flights.

Read more about this topic:  Wingtip Vortices

Famous quotes containing the words formation and/or flight:

    ... the mass migrations now habitual in our nation are disastrous to the family and to the formation of individual character. It is impossible to create a stable society if something like a third of our people are constantly moving about. We cannot grow fine human beings, any more than we can grow fine trees, if they are constantly torn up by the roots and transplanted ...
    Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)

    The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.
    Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)