What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

November 28, 2003 6:36 PM

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow. Hashing out the classic question with Strouhal numbers and simplified flight waveforms. The site also includes other very well presented number crunching articles too. [via The One]
posted by riffola (10 comments total)

Thanks, I was laughing before I even hit the link. Wow, he even looked up the capital(s) of Assyria. But I notice that he sticks to unladen swallows, and never attempts to explain how they might carry a coconut from a tropical to a temperate zone.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:51 PM on November 28, 2003

I fart in your general direction.
posted by yhbc at 8:26 PM on November 28, 2003

"An unladen swallow" sounds like a diet I was on recently...
posted by wendell at 8:52 PM on November 28, 2003

And work on your aim, commish. Yeeeesh.
posted by wendell at 8:55 PM on November 28, 2003

bloody brilliant
posted by fellorwaspushed at 10:45 PM on November 28, 2003

Sheesh, riffola, just because you buy mathowie a nice camera, suddenly you get to post kitten pictures and steal links from his blog? ;)
posted by filmgoerjuan at 2:37 AM on November 29, 2003

No, not the One. Mustn't mention the One. Zathras listens and does what he is told.
posted by arto at 2:39 AM on November 29, 2003

We like to praise birds for flying.
But how much of it is actually flying,
and how much of it is just sort of coasting from that last flap?

Deep Thought!
posted by kenaman at 3:31 AM on November 29, 2003

The first article he did on flying, which I think was on Slashdot a month ago, was very cool as well. There are several visualizations there that would get a thumbs up from Tufte.
posted by badstone at 8:51 AM on November 29, 2003

never attempts to explain how they might carry a coconut from a tropical to a temperate zone.

Actually, he did in the comments section:

As has been previously reported, a five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut. In reality, the swallow is only about 0.5 oz, or 1/32 the weight of a one pound coconut. Even with the milk of the coconut drained, it would take a number of birds rigged to a good length of creeper to lift a coconut husk.

posted by pjammer at 8:03 PM on November 29, 2003