Re: [dinosaur] Archaeopteryx had active flapping flight ability based on wing bone geometry (free pdf)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Gesendet:ÂDonnerstag, 15. MÃrz 2018 um 01:02 Uhr
Von:Â"Ruben Safir" <ruben@mrbrklyn.com>

> On 03/14/2018 05:53 PM, David Marjanovic wrote:
> > Or, I suppose, it could just tilt itself, so that its forestroke becomes an 
> > upstroke. The tail base is flexible enough to prevent the tail from 
> > touching the ground.
>
> that would be very difficult aerodynamically. your suggesting it would look 
> like a V?

I'm suggesting it would look like __ on land and during flight, and like \_ 
(less steep than that, probably) during takeoff. An obtuse angle, not an acute 
one like a V.

Later, you wrote:

> And yet there Archaeopteryx is, a bird which obviously will need to run
> to get enough lift to fly. It can't really be denied. If Swans need a
> running start, Archaeopteryx, which is better designed for running, and
> less designed for a leap and winged launch, would need it even more so.
> The time line is being fudged here. Just because Swans today are part
> of a select group of birds that do a running takeoff doesn't mean the
> trait is not ancestral to transitional forms within coelurosaurs.

"It can't really be denied"?!? Everything that is asserted without evidence can 
be denied. You've never explained why you think *Archaeopteryx* would have been 
bad at leaping (it was lighter than a swan and had proportionally much longer 
legs) or why else it would have needed a running launch.