A link that seems not to be live at present:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/971011/features.html

Is a report that explains the implications of Reynolds number and the
fact that bee/insect wing movements in flight create vortexes that
create lift in excess of that predicted by "large size" aerodynamics.

The failure to predict the lift when using "normal" aerodynamic analysis
is not due to incorrectness but misapplication. That speed regime (sub-,
trans- and super sonic) affects aerodynamics is well known to pretty
much everybody these days, but the fact that size affects aerodynamics
is much less well known. The aircraft modelling fraternity knows that
model-size aerodynamics are not the same as full-size aerodynamics - and
it turns out that insect-size aerodynamics are different again. Due to
size - ie. due to wildly different range of Reynolds number.

cheers Tony
--
Anthony N Morgan,
Førsteamanuensis
Institutt for Elektroteknikk
Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag
N-7005 Trondheim, Norway
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Tlf. 73 55 96 04
Fax. 73 55 95 81