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A funny thing happened when I got a hold of some balsa wood....
As the subject suggests I got a hold of some balsa wood tonight and decided
to make some "fairly" accurate models of pterosaurs composed of a vertical
"body" section and a horizontal "wing" section. I made six
models: Sordes, Dimorphodon, Rhamphorhynchus, Pterodactylus, Pterodaustro,
and Pteranodon. I made them approximately equal in size so that I could use
the size same peice of wood for the wings in each of them. Being the
inquizative one that I am, I also decided to test how well they would fly
with narrow wings and how well they would fly with wider wings. With either
wing shape, they will eventually stall and nose-dive; but with the wider
wings they tend to stall MUCH faster than with the narrow wings. With
Pterodactylus and Sordes it was an almost immediate plumet with the wide
wings, but a gentle glide with the narrower wings. I found the Pterodactylus
model to not be a very good glider with either wings actually, but
nevertheless, better with the thin wings. Sordes glides fairly well with the
narrow wings, but badly (as said before) with the wide wings. Dimorphodon
glides pretty well with the narrow wings, but again stalls much sooner with
the wide wings. As an aside, I was surprised I had to add duct-tape to the
already enormous head to get the balance right. Rhamphorhynchus glided very
well with both wing shapes actually, but again stalled about 1/3 earlier with
the wide wings. Pterodaustro glided supperbly with the narrow wings, and not
so well with the wide wings. I was actually surprised that Pterodaustro
glided so well considering the body was so oddly shaped. Pteranodon glided
very well with the narrow wings and not as well (but still pretty well) with
the wider wings. As might be expected, I had to add weight to the rear of
Pteranodon, but I was kind of surprised how well it glided at all; the big head
tends to make one imagine a bad glider, but really, just the opposite is
true. I'm not sure what this means for a flapping animal, but it seems like
the wide-winged pterosaur idea is inherently unstable aerodynamically. Just
my thoughts. I'm going to make some more models tomorrow, I'd like to see
how Anhinguara favors, or something weird like Tupaxura.... Also, if anyone
is interested, I'm getting the relative proportions from Wellnhoffer's
"Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs".
Peter Buchholz
gpb6845@msu.oscs.montana.edu
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