How does a fly land on the ceiling?

[Milt]

Does anyone know how flying insects land on on inverted surfaces?

Do they roll or loop to a touch up?

Perhaps there is some high speed photography available.

[Guern]

Answer is here

http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/flies.asp

[victor two]

There were several flies in my light aircraft this past weekend that had a chance to explore the world more than a few hundred feet from their place of birth. A handful of them piled into the cockpit before I took off. They were then uplifted to ten thousand feet and flown 350 miles across Australia before being dropped off.

I can say with confidence that they do get quite sluggish up at altitude and tend to just wander about slowly on the windscreen or quietly gaze out the window and tend to get more frisky once you descend back to lower levels. Maybe they need denser air to fly properly.

I was glad for the company actually as it was a boring flight and they helped me to pass the time. Sad really!

cheers

Vic

[Milt]

Damn you victor two!!!!

Now you have the old grey matter fired up wondering how a fly will perform weightless or under g < 1.

And do they need oxygen masks at high altitudes. Well now - does a fly even breathe.? If so they must be itsy bitsy lungs.

Perhaps also in the less dense air they will become confused by their higher TAS and go charging into things. Did you observe?

Ponder all of that as you transfer species around the outback.

Just don't do it with cane toads and such.

Smooth landings.

[victor two]

Milt,

Based on my usual bush flying passengers, flies come as a part of the deal if you know what I mean.

I do know that the relative size of a little black blowfly sitting on the windscreen is way out of proportion to the size of him after he has been smashed with a rolled up ERC chart. I also learned it is much easier to just let them sit quietly subdued in the thin air rather than try and remove a smear that just seems to keep smearing rather than coming off.

The last shuttle mission had a load of aussie spiders on board conducting zero "g" web spinning experiments but the results of that would be lost forever I think.

cheers
Vic

[Old Smokey]

Milt,
And do they need oxygen masks at high altitudes.
Yes, the typical Australian sea level acclimatised fly has an operational ceiling at about 6000 to 7000 feet.

As a young F/O I often flew with a Captain who would amuse himself by observing stow-away flys exceeding their TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) and falling into a comatose state at about 6000 to 7000 feet. Phase 2 of the amusement was to liberally douse the fly in a pool of 100% Oxygen from the nearest oxygen mask. Recovery would typically take place within about 5 seconds, whereupon the recovered fly would buzz of to do fly things. TUC outside the O2 rich environment was about 10 seconds, whereupon a further crash took place.

Merv did get bored on long flights.

Regards,

Old Smokey

[Pilotage]

I remember doing a performance climb in an unpressurised aircraft once and watching a ladybird (ladybug to Americans) crawling around on the canopy. It vanished out of sight at about FL180 but was happily crawling around until then.

That was from an approximately ISA S/L start.

G

[Decent in Descent]

Veering slightly away from thread...

I was due to visit a rather high-altitude city in Central America. The very grumpy WRAF Nurse insisted I go on anti-malarials for this... I insisted the city was above the WAT limit for mosquitoes and refused.

The best part came when she said "If you were my husband I would insist you took all your pills". Thinking of a Churchill repost, I said... "If I was your Husband, I would gladly accept......"


I was unceremoniously ushered from the surgery.........