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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: gliding against the wind
Message-ID: <792@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 19:39:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.792
Posted: Mon Oct 14 19:39:43 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 20:12:39 EDT
References: <425@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 41
Summary: 

In article <425@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>
>At least one reader has misunderstood one of my statements regarding the
>posssibility of a living creature using gliding as a primary means of
>transportation. 

	Well, nobody has ever claimed that any animal was a *pure*
glider. That is nobody has ever said that the large pterosaurs *never*
flap thier wings, only that, like the modern Albatross and Vulture,
they *rarely* flap thier wings - there is considerable difference.
I gues it is a matter of what you mean by "primary means" of
transportation. By my definition the Albatross uses gliding as its
primary means of transportation, not powered flight. It uses powered
flight(flapping) as a *supplement* to gliding.

>  In the case of 
>Quetzelcoatlus Northropi, however, we are talking about something different.
>For this creature to have survived as a glider, assuming the whole notion
>wasn't preposterous in the first place, which it is, and also assuming it
>had some magical way of getting airborne from low ground, which it didn't, it  
>still had one insurmountable problem remaining:  getting home.  It would have  
>had to land on low areas for the carrion which by all accounts constituted its
>diet.  Then, assuming it was a glider, and assuming also it had a magical way
>of getting airborne, it could not have glided home against the wind, STARTING
>FROM SEA-LEVEL.
>
	Only true if it wre a *pure* glider, given that it could flap
its wings gently for a bit of extra push it could attain any altitude
it liked. And as for taking off I have already shown that its low
stall speed allowed it to take off from a standing start simply by
facing into the breeze!

>In reality, of course, nothing lives as a glider.

	That is except for the Albatross and the Condor!
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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