The ancestors of ancient birds may have resembled the Wright brother’s 1903 biwing airplane. So wrote scientist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University. A new study of the bones of a 125 million-year-old Chinese dinosaur suggests that they had upper and lower set of wings much like the biplanes of the Wright brothers.
The dinosaur called Microraptor gui used a two-level wing configuration that permitted the small 2-pound creature to glide from tree to tree. The 6-inch dinosaur had feathers on its legs that it folded under its body in flight, creating two staggered wing sections one slightly behind the other.
It appears that the dinosaur was tree-dwelling and took advantage of gravity to glide from tree to tree.
The Wrights observed birds to learn insights about flight. They concluded that control, particularly the roll component, was the key to man-flight. Birds mastered roll by twisting their wings. And like birds, a pilot could twist the wings of an airplane using a technique they named wing warping.
The Wrights used the biwing structure as a practical design for wing warping. Wilbur got the idea while twisting a bicycle tube box talking to a customer in their bicycle shop.
The dinosaur called “Microraptor gui” used a two-level wing configuration that permitted the small 2-pound creature to glide from tree to tree. The 6-inch dinosaur had feathers on its legs that it folded under its body in flight, creating two staggered wing sections one slightly behind the other.
It appears that the dinosaur was tree-dwelling and took advantage of gravity to glide from tree to tree.
The Wrights observed birds to learn insights about flight. They concluded that control, particularly the roll component, was the key to man-flight. Birds mastered roll by twisting their wings. And like birds, a pilot could twist the wings of an airplane using a technique they named wing warping.
The Wrights used the biwing structure as a practical design for wing warping. Wilbur got the idea while twisting a bicycle tube box talking to a customer in their bicycle shop.