Talk:Flight/Archive 1

Archive 1

Definition discussion

User:Someone else says "People are mammals, but they don't fly. They ride in planes." I disagree. People do fly. We build aeroplanes to enable us to fly. Just because an animal has to build something to enable it to do a thing, that doesn't mean they don't do that thing. Birds have to build nests to raise their young. I don't think anybody would argue that therefore birds don't raise their young! GrahamN 03:10 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A relatively few people build or pilot airplanes. Many more people--and dogs, cats, and the occasional sea mammal--fly in them. This is a problematic line of argument. Vicki Rosenzweig 03:18 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

People (and other animals) fly in aircraft built and piloted by other people. Ants (and other animals) live in anthills built and run by other ants. This doesn't mean that people don't fly, nor does it mean that ants do not live in anthills. GrahamN 03:32 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You fail to distinguish the various meanings of flight. An animal that travels through the air with wings is doing something fundamentally different than an animal that operates an aircraft. The article itself distinguishes between animal and mechanical flight: human flight is in the latter category, and your addition was in the former. -- Someone else 03:47 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I realise that the question we are discussing is not at all significant, but I am surprised and intrigued by the opposition to what I had thought was just a simple mundane observation. I read somewhere about a type of spider that migrates over long distances by climbing to a high point, extruding a long silk thread and allowing itself to be carried away by it on the air currents. May I ask each of you: does this animal fly, in your opinion? If you think it does fly, then where exactly do you draw the line between this kind of very rudimentary spider-built aircraft, and the more complex human-built varieties? If you think it doesn't fly, then should we now open a section under the "mechanical flight" paragraph to deal with spider aviation?  :-) GrahamN 14:59 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It would depend on if you want to distinguish flight from gliding or soaring: by the strictest definition flight entails the ability to achieve lift "under one's own power", and animals considered capable of flight generally have the ability to go from a low place to a high place without absolute dependence on the wind. Sounds to me like this spider just falls really slowly. By a looser definition, one might say said spider flies (i.e., it travels through the air), but I wouldn't classify a web as mechanical. (Nor would a person hanging below an open parachute generally be said to be flying, in mid-air though he may be.) -- Someone else 16:29 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

By the strictest definition flight entails the ability to achieve lift "under one's own power" - I'm not sure this is quite right, is it? By this definition, one of the most successful flying animals ever, the wandering albatross, is scarcely capable of flight. They are absolutely hopeless if they have to flap - their wings are completely unsuited to the task - but they are astonishingly adept at soaring. They can detect and exploit the tiniest subtle variations in the energy of the atmosphere, and this enables them to travel half way around the world without once using their own power to achieve lift. I read somewhere about a fossil they found of some huge pterosaur - it had a 12-metre wing-span if I remember correctly. Yes, here is a Wikipedia stub article about it. They worked out that it would be physically impossible for it to flap its wings. It must have flown purely by soaring, and come to earth only on windy clifftops. Landing at ground level would have meant certain death. Competitive sailplane pilots regularly race around closed triangular courses of 500, or even 1000 kilometres. If these things are not examples of flight, then I'm a Dutchman! As for parachuting, how do you feel about about paragliding? This is a form of flight, surely? Again, competitive paraglider pilots race round quite sizeable courses - up to about 100 km, I think. But paragliders are nothing more than parachutes! I don't see any sensible place for you to draw the line you want to draw. And I don't really understand why you feel the need to draw it. GrahamN 01:55 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The distinction between "soaring" and "true flight" is not something I'm making up: others have found this distinction useful, as an Internet search for the phrase "true flight" will show. An example, which mentions your example of the pterosaur can be found at [[1]]. -- Someone else 02:04 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

rrytr The problem with human flight is that we can't fly other than by using manipulative organs to build the mechanical devices necessary to do so. A spider uses its innate biological abilities (producing threads) to achieve gliding in certain situations, as does Spider-Man, but regular humans need to build at least a glider to do so. It is this distinction which separates animal and superhero flight from human (mechanical) flight. --Eloquence 02:23 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Argh, I was just adding the phrase "under their own power" to the article, which I thought would solve everything, but then I noticed that lots of gliding animals are included. I suppose that either (a) they should be removed, or (b) the section on flying animals should be divided into two parts to discuss powered flight and gliding separately. Except that I suppose there must be a continuum from one to the other, so... no, I'm going to stop thinking about it. -- Oliver P. 03:02 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You're not Lir or Vera Cruz, are you GrahamN? There is something hauntingly familiar about your particular slant on splitting hairs precisely.

Addressing the broader question now, there is a distinction between flying animals and gliding animals. The spider GN mentioned does not fly, it glides (or rather, it drifts). The albatross does fly under its own power, though not very well, and so on. From the point of view of practicality, it is probably best to deal with powered flight (e.g., a swallow, bee or bat), gliding flight (e.g., Sugar Glider), and other forms of flight (e.g., spider with thread) all in the one article Tannin 04:14 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The person isn't flying, the plane is. The people inside it remain on its floor, still affected by gravity. 205.206.207.250 09:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

first line/definition

does anyone else think that 'flight is the process of flying' is a bit of a ridiculous first line? i think it should be something a little more precise, perhaps:

"Flight is the process by which an animal or object which is heavier than air acheives sustained movement 'through' the air, either by its own power or with mechanical help."

any thoughts? it's not perfect, but it think it fits a little better with the article than the current one.Rich 22:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

no objections: i'm going to go ahead and work it in. Rich 22:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a good sentence, a big improvement; although you don't need the single quotes around through - DavidWBrooks 22:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

but maybe we should ask, how do we define what flight is? what are the mechanics of flight? how does anything fly? how does a bird flapping its wings attain what we might call flight? what are the processes invloved in heavier than air flight?

throwing

I am just curius about the difference between throwing oneself and flying, since whatever flies eventually will fall down, just like somehting thrown, such as a frisbee. just wondering what the technical difference is

I have been thinking similar thoughts. As the article stands now 'sustained movement in the air or outside the earths atmosphere' is flight. What qualifies as 'sustained movement' is up for interpretation I guess. I would say that a frisbee or ball flies under this definition. I think this is reasonable because spacecraft in orbit are in free fall in the exact way that a ball thrown on earth is.

the definition could be simplified to say something like "sustained movement not in contact with a ground surface" because driving a buggy on the moon could be called spaceflight because it is outside the earth's atmosphere.

I don't have any sources on how the scientific community defines flight, but I have a feeling there are disagreements between individuals and between fields.Diletante 20:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Flug

Why on earth does flug redirect here?

What is it anyway? Finnish Linux User Group? Richard001 08:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe Flug is the German word for flight. In german WP, the article about flight is titled "Fliegen", which would translate directly to "flying", not "flight". That put aside, there's still no sense to have the redirect, as there would then have to be redirects from all foreign terms to all the articles to be consistent. --Yerpo 10:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It is , but why does it redirect?? Mannix Chan (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Redirects can be created, amended and deleted just like any article. If flug should re-direct to something else let us know and someone will amend the re-direct. If flug should have its own article we are all welcome to write that article. Dolphin (t) 05:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

flight numbers

This discussion is begun here even though I'm not certain where the best place to begin. There are a number of articles about specific airline flights. I believe the word "flight" should not be capitalised. (For example, KLM flight 833, not KLM Flight 833). One government accident report does not capitalise the word "flight". [2] I will look at other sources. Archtransit 16:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Rockets?

Some of these debates are quite fascinating and all (personally I do believe there is a useful distinction to be made between objects that move through the air purely driven by momentum (unpowered projectiles), or by altitude loss (gliders, parachutes, free falling objects), or by movement of the fluid though which they fly (kites, free blowing objects in updrafts) and objects that truly fly), but I think a critical deficiency of the article has been over looked. The introduction's definition of flight as "the process by which an object achieves sustained movement... through the air by aerodynamically generating lift or aerostatically using buoyancy" completely overlooks objects that fly (within the earth's atmosphere), by expelling gas and using the resulting opposite reaction. A rocket achieves sustained, powered, true flight by any reasonable standard yet it makes use of neither aerodynamics nor buoyancy. I'm not quite sure how to reword the sentence to include rockets. Any suggestions? 24.22.24.208 (talk) 06:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Blanked-Out

• On the Mecanical Flight section, there is about one sentence, then a blank. Should we move it closer to the next section, and therefore remove the blank section, or is this vandalism? I will check the article history and see. If you have any questions to this disscussion, please reply and someone will come and answer.

Thanks!Iceberg2229 (talk) 00:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Removed section with a shout-out for another article

I removed the following:

For a good, easy-to-follow explanation see See also Bird flight.

If it was something important or salvagable, I wanted to save it here, but it is really messy and just seems like an afterthought, maybe placed by the author cited or a friend of the author. Thanks, Macduffman (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Angels?

There's a list of things that can fly or something, and angels are included. Does the Bible or Quran ever say that angels could fly? I think that's just from some certain tradition or something. Just checking, I guess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.177.182.30 (talk) 18:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Isaiah 6:2 describes seraphs as having "six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two they were flying" (NIV). I don't know about the Quran, but I guess your answer's there. --Magnetizzle (talk) 20:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Flight/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

* Lacking much content, very listy. This article is being considered for inclusion, once the quality of the article has improved. article is much improved, still quite short on references.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 19:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 14:48, 1 May 2016 (UTC)