 Argentavis from the Miocene
Sorry, my mistake this time. I speed read and for some
reason took in the birds glide angle as being 3% rather
than 3 degrees.
Unfortunately this conclusion was compounded by a very
mathematically gifted friend of mine, who is a professional
physicist, writing to me on this subject when he had
also made the same mistake!
Del Copeland
At 15:36 17 February 2008, Del C wrote:
>The article claimed a glide angle of 3 PERCENT, which
>is 3 in 100 or approximately 33:1.
>
>3 DEGREES is roughly 3 in 60 or about 20:1, as you
>say.
>
>I did rather wonder if the article got percent and
>degrees mixed up, as I understand that the best modern
>soaring birds do not have an L/D of much over 20:1.
>
>Del Copeland
>
>At 15:06 17 February 2008, Tony Verhulst wrote:
>>Del C wrote:
>>> This article claims that this very large extinct condor
>>> (Argentavis magnificens) had a glide ratio of 3% at
>>> 67 kph, which is about 33:1. This is better than many
>>> older and some newer (e.g. PW5) gliders. So much for
>>> evolution!
>>
>>A 3 degree glide angle is a slightly over 19:1 glide
>>ratio. This is high
>>school trigonometry - simply look up the cotangent
>>of 3 (the value of
>>y/x). Not quite as good as a 2-33 :-).
>>
>>Tony V.
>>
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