🦉 How the secret of owls' silent flight could upgrade our aircraft

Owls mastered the art of aerial stealth and are able to glide in near silence through the air. Aviation engineers have long sought to mimic their acoustic-dampening capacity in our own aircraft. Now researchers in Japan have uncovered the muffling secret of muffled flight, bringing science closer to silencing human flight.

Using simulations, scientists found trailing edge fringe feathers scatter airflow disturbances through two complementary mechanisms that simultaneously boost lift and reduce noise. Continue reading today’s Must Read for more on how nature’s own noise cancellation works.

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Using simulated 3D owl wing models, scientists pinpointed how trailing edge fringe feathers suppress airflow fluctuations and vorticity. Lightweight geometric patterns along the wingtips scatter turbulence-inducing interactions, enabling both silence and aerodynamic efficiency.

Beyond solving a riddle that has perplexed biologists for ages, the biomimetic discovery could be applied as a template for upgrading drones, planes, wind turbines and other machinery prone to making a racket. 

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