On 9 Dec 2004 09:58:52 -0700, (Mark James Boyd)
wrote:

Here's a wierd idea:

Get longer wings. If the wings hit an updraft, they will
go up, and flex, but the fuselage won't go up right away,
kind of a "shock absorber." Then the wings will reflex,
giving extra thrust, and dissipating the G's. A few oscillations
later and you'll feel real queasy, but you'll have more glide
and less G's. Better all around, right?

OK, a bit off thread, but has anyone modeled this (dynamic)
interaction? Sure sure, we know about best glide, but what
about the effect of long wings flapping like a seagull in turbulence?

In principle, it's possible to extract energy from fluid flow that
varies over a scale smaller than the size of the vehicle -- in other
words, if THIS part of the aircraft and THAT part are in measurably
different airflow.

There's a gadget sometimes demonstrated on model boats called a "wave
motor," that demonstrates this. You equip the boat with a lightweight
frame sticking down from the hull, and mount some hinged vanes on it.
The vertical motion of waves gets smaller with increasing depth, so
the vanes are alternately dragged up and pushed down with respect to
the deeper water, and they propel the boat.

So all we have to do is figure out the transition from "in principle"
to "in fiberglass"...;-)

rj