> My 9 year old 5th grade son came home with the above title as his science
> fair project.  He had read in a book about aerodynamics (sp?) that honey
> bees should not be able to fly according th their aerodynamics.  Apparently,
> honey bees fly by application of brute force of flapping their wings.
 
From my understanding of the story, the key interest area here is
political rather than aerodynamic...
 
Back in the 1930s there were some German researchers who did an
analysis of bumble bee flight, based on body weight, wing area, wing
beat rate, etc.  The conclusion was that "bees can't fly".  And it
has repeatedly been pointed at as an example of stupid science -
scientists just don't have any common sense, etc...
 
The science was all correct, but the analysis was using the
calculations of fixed wing flight.  (And hey, I play with bees - I'm
not a rocket scientist, so don't blast me if this isn't exact!!!).
Seems that bumble and honey bees flight has more in common with a
helicopter than with an airplane's wings.  The wings are not just
going up and down, pushing at the air.  They in fact perform a figure
of eight motion, 'feathering' the wing area with each beat.
 
But before the people who realised the error of the original research
published, along came a war.  And for a variety of reasons (ie
political, I expect) the 'countering' publication did not occur until
long after the public had taken up the "Stupid scientists try to tell
bees they can't fly" refrain.
 
Somewhere I do have a paper describing all this - does it sound
familiar to anyone else?
 
  (\           Nick Wallingford
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