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** Reminder Today **
TITLE: Sailor of the Southern Skies
SPEAKER: Peter Lissaman
TIME: Tuesday, March 25 12:30p
LOCATION: 624 Agua Fria Conference Room
Lunch will be available for $5
ABSTRACT
This is a theoretical scientific seminar of the methods by which the southern
albatross (Diomedea Exulans) extracts energy from the oceanic boundary layer,
as first noted by Lord Rayleigh and, poetically, by Coleridge in "The Ancient
Mariner". This great bird flies many thousands of kilometers on stationary,
silent wings. The primeval flight energy extraction procedure makes its
existence possible. The analysis involves optimization of nonlinear, extreme
angle flight mechanics in a spatially varying wind field, and some simple
variational techniques. The results are supported by a short VCR clip, showing
the process.
Many of the discussions of this topic on the web, and in ornithological
literature, including a recent authoritative volume by Oxford Univ. Press, are
incorrect.
The lecture has been presented at American Instit. of Aero- and Astronautics,
NASA, Caltech, Stanford, USC, UNM and other places.
The Presenter
Peter Lissaman has a Ph.D. in aeronautics from Caltech, and advanced degrees in
Math from Cambridge Univ., in ME from Natal University and an Honorary Ph.D. in
engineering design from Natal University. He was awarded the Longstreth Gold
Medal by the US Franklin Society (previous recipients were Orville Wright and
Thomas Edison) and the Kremer medal from the Royal Aeronautical Society. He has
taught many students, from Navy test pilots to Grad students at Caltech, USC,
and Stanford. Some of his students went far - two to the moon! He is a
designer of operating aircraft, sailboats, wind turbines and automobiles, and
has published more than 160 papers on subjects ranging from wing theory and bird
flight to turbulence.
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