NEW YORK: Scientists wanted to study how the flies manage to fly so well when their small bodies and fast-beating wings make them inherently unstable. A bizarre experiment in which fruit flies carrying tiny magnets are forced to roll in the air has demonstrated the insects’ ability as “fly-by-wire” master aviators.
Dr. Tsevi Beatus from Cornell University in New York, the led author of Describing the study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface wrote: “We glue a magnet to each fly and apply a short magnetic pulse that rolls it in midair.”
Tiny magnets attached to the flies made it possible to upset the insects by zapping them in midflight with brief magnetic pulses forcing them to roll like out-of-control aircraft.
“Fast video shows flies correct perturbations up to 100% within 30 (plus or minus seven) milliseconds by applying a stroke-amplitude asymmetry… “Flies respond to roll perturbations within five milliseconds, making this correction reflex one of the fastest in the animal kingdom.”
But the flies did not stay out of control for long. Instead they applied lightning fast corrective responses, putting them fully back in charge in as little as 23 milliseconds. Even after meeting their match by being spun multiple times, they were able to return normal flight within three or four wing beats after the scientists turned off their “tractor beam”.
The impressive speed at which the flies react, beating their wings at different rates and stroke angles, is almost unprecedented, said the US researchers.
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