Mimicking nature's flight inventions- Microraptor invents biplane 125 million years ago

On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flight from Kitty Hawk, New Carolina, and ushered in a new age of aviation.

Like the early machines that came after it, the "Wright Flyer" was a stringbag affair with two sets of wings, one slung under the other. But new research suggests that nature beat the Wright brothers to the biplane design - by 125 million years.

Two US scientists believe the early ancestors of modern birds were built like biplanes, with upper and lower wings.

The evidence comes from a small feathered dinosaur called Microraptor gui, which was already known to have four wings attached to its arms and legs.

Scientists first assumed that it held its wings in a tandem pattern, like a dragonfly. But the new analysis of fossils from China suggests that in fact Microraptor positioned its hind legs below its body to adopt a biplane-like posture.

By doing this, the rear wings were brought under the forewings. As in the typical biplane, the upper wings were situated slightly in front of the lower wings.

A computer flight simulation showed that the design would have been ideal for gliding among trees.

Modern birds are not thought to be descended from pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that grew as big as small planes, but from feathered tree-dwelling dinosaurs such as Microraptor.

Before they learned the secret of powered flight, these small creatures developed wings to glide between tree tops.

Microraptor, which measured only about 16 inches, belonged to a large family that included feathered dinosaurs and the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx.

Sankar Chatterjee and Jack Templing, from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, described their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


They calculated that Microraptor would have been a "moderate glider" but not as adept as high performers such as the modern Frigate bird or the similar-sized pterosaur, Nyctosaurus.

The scientist wrote: "Aircraft designers have mimicked many of nature’s flight ‘inventions’, usually inadvertently. Leading edge slats delay stalling, as does the alula (bastard wing) of birds; birds’ feet act as airbrakes, and streamlining reduces drag."

Now, it seems likely that Microraptor invented the biplane 125 million years before the Wright 1903 Flyer."

Chatterjee and Templing believe the biplane design may have been a precursor to all bird flight, rather than an evolutionary curiosity.