Albatross 'dynamic soaring' achieved by repeated curve-altitude oscillation

A PLOS ONE press release

2012-09-06

(Press-News.org) Albatrosses leverage the energy of the wind to fly with essentially no mechanical cost to themselves, very rarely flapping their wings, and new work published Sep. 5 in the open access journal PLOS ONE offers insight into how exactly they accomplish this feat.

The researchers, led by Gottfried Sachs of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen and Francesco Bonadonna of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), used advanced GPS tracking to determine that the energy gain during the albatross's "dynamic soaring" comes from a repeated oscillation consisting of a combined curve-altitude flight maneuver, with optimal adjustment for the wind. The results may provide inspiration for robotic aircraft that utilize the flight technique of albatrosses for engineless propulsion, the authors write.

### Citation: Sachs G, Traugott J, Nesterova AP, Dell'Omo G, Ku¨mmeth F, et al. (2012) Flying at No Mechanical Energy Cost: Disclosing the Secret of Wandering Albatrosses. PLOS ONE 7(9): e41449. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041449

Financial Disclosure: This work was supported by Institut Polaire Franc¸ais Paul Emile Victor (IPEV, Program No. 354) A.P. Nesterova was supported by National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship (#0700939). G. Dell'Omo was supported by Ornis italica. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: Franz Ku¨mmeth and Wolfgang Heidrich are the owners of the company e-obs GmbH, and Giacomo Dell'Omo is the owner of Technosmart which built the GPS data loggers used in this study. This does not alter their adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

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Albatross 'dynamic soaring' achieved by repeated curve-altitude oscillation

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