Re: gliding

["James R. Cunningham" <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

It sure would!  Is that the sound of a volunteer I hear?  As you know, I prefer
a ground-up scenario, but knowledge of  the distribution would be equally
valuable for either scenario.  Generally, whether an animal is gliding or
soaring, there is an advantage to having the highest wing loading one can get
away with without the increased minimum sink rate exceeding the average
available travel time between lift sources.  Which is one reason Frigate birds
are so lightly loaded.  They can make use of  very weak lift sources.  But
light loading implies a speed reduction that can be counter-productive for a
non-soaring glider, and is only important to those soarers that fill rather
specialized niches.
Jim
P.S.  Hang in there on the vrtpaleo Genera corrections.

Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:

> Would be interesting to see how weight
> distribution in theropods and avians might apply to gliding scenario for
> avian flight origins.