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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1883.PDF
Flight, 25 June 1954 Problems of flight FOLDING WINGS Folding wings have been used by beetles since evolution was young. Man, in the carrier-based aircraft, has faced only recently the problem that Nature solved so long ago. season, or perhaps for scraping plant-shoots to get at the sap.) This great weight demands large wings. Hence Nature's problem. For many beetles burrow into the earth; many fight; many find their food or their There are nearly as many different reasons for folding wings as there are different kinds of beetle — and beetles, with their 250,000 species, are the largest order in the animal kingdom. Their habits vary widely. Some no longer fly; some never did. Those that do have heavier bodies than any other flying insect, because of their thick plates of protective armour. (Some also have enormous jaws: those of the male stag-beetle illustrated may be for fighting other males during the mating safety in cracks in wood or chinks in stone. Un folded wings would make all this impossible. And the beetle's wings are fragile. To keep himself airworthy he has to protect them under armoured covers. (These covers are actually his fore-wings, specially adapted for this special task.) As in the crowded turmoil of the insect world, so in the tight space of an aircraft carrier. Man has taken yet another leaf out of Nature's great book— has found to yet another of his problems another time-honoured answer. Pilots whose planes do not need the refinement of folding wings—because they land them at any of Britain's airfields—value the excellent and helpful service of the Shell and BP Aviation Service. SHELL and BP AVIATION SERVICE Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd., Shell-Mex House, Strand, London, W.C.2. Distributors in the United Kingdom for the Shell and Anglo-Iranian Oil Groups.
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