From Colin Cook, State Chemistry Laboratory
Werribee, Victoria, Australia
The article on aircraft vortices (“Trails Of Destruction”, 16 November, p 28)
reminded me of a TV documentary I saw many years ago on the same problem.
Spraying operations conducted by cropdusters had been suffering from problems
due to wingtip vortices disrupting the spray pattern at the edges, resulting in
spray drift and losses of chemical.
They turned to nature to solve the problem and created a series of metal
fingers that extended out from the wingtip and prevented the formation of
vortices. These also had the added advantage of lowering fuel consumption. The
metal finger design had been inspired by the wings of an eagle.
Perhaps the scientists and engineers trying to solve problems relating to
flight should have a bird in hand when settling down at the drawing board. After
all, they have been flying for a lot longer than we have.
Advertisement
