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Formation Flight of Birds
Abstract
Formation flight of birds improves aerodynamic efficiency. Theoretically, 25 birds could have a range increase of about 70 percent as compared with a lone bird, the advantage being more pronounced when there is a tail wind. A vee formation is required to equally distribute the drag saving, and, contrary to other statements, the lead bird does not necessarily have the most strenuous position. The angle of the predicted vee compares with that observed in nature; stability mechanisms are described which make it easy and natural for the bird to sense optimal formations.
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Cited by
The Walking Behaviour of Pedestrian Social Groups and Its Impact on Crowd Dynamics
Moussaïd, M., Perozo, N., Garnier, S., Helbing, D., & Theraulaz, G. (2010) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010047 · Cited by 1,120
A review of fish swimming mechanics and behaviour in altered flows
Liao, J. C. (2007) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2082 · Cited by 834
Upwash exploitation and downwash avoidance by flap phasing in ibis formation flight
Portugal, S. J., Hubel, T. Y., Fritz, J., Heese, S., Trobe, D., Voelkl, B., Hailes, S., Wilson, A. M., & Usherwood, J. R. (2014) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature12939 · Cited by 465
Hedenström, A., & Alerstam, T. (1995) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.1995.0082 · Cited by 261
What it Takes to Fly: The Structural and Functional Respiratory Refinements in Birds and Bats
Maina, J. N. (2000) · Journal of Experimental Biology · doi:10.1242/jeb.203.20.3045 · Cited by 189
Metadata
- Authors
- Lissaman, P. B. S., & Shollenberger, C. A.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1970-05-22
- Volume
- 168
- Issue
- 3934
- Pages
- 1003-1005
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1991125864
- Cited by
- 487
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 6.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Formation Flight of Birds. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.168.3934.1003
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- Lissaman, P. B. S., & Shollenberger, C. A. (1970). Formation Flight of Birds. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.168.3934.1003
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
