Flying Snakes: The Secret to Their Incredible Gliding Abilities

[mugaliens]

http://news.yahoo.com/s//livescience/20101123/sc_livescience/flyingsnakessecretrevealed/" .

These little guys managed 80' horizontal from a 50' high platform. Furthermore, the video clearly shows their fall flattens out to some serious forward motion, so they're definitely not just leaping that far.

The mechanism appears fairly straitforward, with a self-flattened rib cage angled nearly sideways into the apparent wind, and using both its tail as well as the length of each back and forth slithering movement for steerage.

It even flares before landing!

I wonder how well it would fare from 200' up?

 

[viscousflow]

Would be nice to do some wind tunnel analysis on it! Some shots with smoke flow over it would be great too.

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

The touchdown must be some headache though.

 

[mugaliens]

Would be nice to do some wind tunnel analysis on it! Some shots with smoke flow over it would be great too.

If he can launch them into a slight headwind, and provided he has a large enough clear area upwind, it might be possible to set up smoke ribbons that would last for 80 feet. Otherwise, good luck on finding a 50' high wind tunnel willing to donate time to research flying snakes.

Interestingly, with 50' vertical and 80' horizontal, that's better than a 1:1 glide ratio. Not bad for an animal that not only doesn't have wings, but doesn't even have any arms or legs!

As for us humans: "The longest verified WiSBASE jump is 5.8 km (3.6 mi) by Dean Potter[7] on August, 2009. Potter jumped from Eiger and had spent 2 minutes and 50 seconds in flight, covering 7,900 ft (2.4 km) of altitude." - http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/best-of-adventure/dean-potter"

That's 5.8 km horizontal to 2.4 km veritcal, for a glide ratio of 2.42.