How Do Insects Fly Despite Aerodynamic Challenges?

[BillTre]

I am putting this in General Discussion because it could go into either biology or aerodynamics.

Remember how bumble bees were not supposed to be able to fly aerodynamically?
This explains why that is wrong.

Here is a podcast I just found (came out in 2019).
The two podcast guys interview Michael Dickinson (Caltech) who does a great job of describing the biology, aerodynamics, evolution, and neurobiology that are involved with insect flight.

 

[russ_watters]

Just to give you a free bump...

I really never liked this meme. I strongly dislike arguments against reality, and this was always framed that way. And even though I never looked deeply into it, I have a hard time believing it was actually that big of a problem. More likely, nobody ever put enough serious effort into it, or at worst mini-scopic flow visualization and CFD hadn't been well enough developed to show it. But fundamentally and at face value, it would seem like all wing-flapping beings probably fly pretty much the same way.

 

[DaveE]

If you're looking to waste some time, check out the insect flight videos from Ant Lab on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@AntLab

 

[BillTre]

Thanks for the bump @russ_watters!

I am not sure how to interpret your response.

Here are some comments:

I really never liked this meme. I strongly dislike arguments against reality, and this was always framed that way. And even though I never looked deeply into it, I have a hard time believing it was actually that big of a problem.

I wouldn't call it a meme, but maybe it is. Nevertheless, it conforms pretty well to what Kuhn would have called an anomaly during periods of normal (as opposed to a period of revolution), in his paradigm view of the world.

Kuhn (1970) defines an anomaly as a violation of the "paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science" (pp. 52-53). Anomalies are detected through empirical analyses and have formed the basis for most discoveries in the natural sciences. For Kuhn, the discovery of anomalies provides the impetus for paradigm change within a field of study. Anomalies are empirical difficulties that reflect differences between the observed and theoretically expected data.

An anomaly amounts to be an outstanding problem in the field (of accounting for flight of certain insects with normal aerodynamic methods). An anomaly could resolve into either figuring it out with fairly normal concepts or to having a scientific revolution leading to a new view of these issues. Not sure which way this finding will push it, but it still seems pretty normal (science-wise) to me.

mini-scopic flow visualization and CFD hadn't been well enough developed to show it.

This makes complete sense to me, however, ...

My understanding what was described in the podcast was not just the same old thing as traditional aerodynamics and airfoils. However, I maybe wrong about this so maybe someone more knowledgeable then me could comment on the podcast's contents.
The unique finding seems to me to be that the wings go back at forth while twisting between the direction changes, and develop lift to a large extent due to vortices that shift back and forth between the front and back of the wing when it changes directions. (maybe humming birds do this too, not sure.)
Not sure how this relates exactly to your comment.