What does the night flight of an airplane have to do with bats?

The plane's night flight was designed by bats. Because when bats fly at night, they use sound waves to see if there are obstacles ahead. And the aircraft designed the radar according to the function of the bat. Night flight is started by radar scanning for obstacles.

The plane's night flight was designed by bats.

The night flight of the aircraft and the bats have radar. The aircraft flies at night by radar, and the working principle of bats and radars is sound waves and slag detection, and by emitting sound waves, they encounter objects and then come back to ensure the safety of flying at night. I believe that anyone who has ever been on a plane knows, in fact, if you have not been on a plane, you know that even if it is dark at night, the plane can fly safely and smoothly, because of the installation of radar devices.

When bats fly in the dark, they use their larynx to emit ultrasound waves that are inaudible to the human ear and emit them through their mouths and noses. Ultrasound waves create echoes when they hit something, which are picked up by the bat's ears and used to determine the distance and size of the object. With this unique radar system, bats can fly freely in the dark without the help of their eyes.

The role of radar

Radar is a device that uses extremely short radio waves to detect, and radio waves can be reflected back when they encounter obstacles when they propagate, and radar transmits radio waves according to this principle and then uses a receiving device to receive the reflected radio waves, so that the direction, distance, and size of the target can be measured, and the received radio waves can be reflected on the indicator to obtain the image of the detected target.

Radar is not affected by climatic conditions in use, and is widely used in military, astronomy, meteorology, navigation, aviation, etc. In fact, the invention of radar predates the scientific discovery of the echolocation capabilities of bats. By 1888, Hertz could already generate radio waves with instruments.

In 1917, Robert Watson Watt successfully designed a thunderstorm locator device, which marked the birth of radar. It wasn't until 1930 that two American college students brought bats into the university physics laboratory and stumbled upon the fact that bats could emit ultrasound.

The bat emits ultrasonic waves from its mouth while flying, and this sound is inaudible to the human ear, but the bat's ear can hear it, and the ultrasonic wave propagates forward, and if there is an obstacle, it reflects back into the bat's ear, and it immediately changes direction.

Bats fly at night not by their eyes, but by their ears and articulatory organs. When bats are flying, they make a squealing sound, which is an ultrasonic signal that cannot be heard by humans because of its high audio. If these ultrasonic signals hit other objects in the flight path, they will be reflected immediately, and after receiving the returned information, the bat will complete the whole process of hearing, seeing, calculating and avoiding obstacles between flapping its wings.

Scientists call this phenomenon echolocation. Humans have created radar based on the principle of bats flying and recognizing objects. But the accuracy of the "instrument" on the bat is much higher than that of the radar.

As it flies, it makes a sound from its mouth. This sound is called ultrasound, and it is inaudible to the human ear, but it can be heard by the bat ear. The ultrasonic waves move forward like waves, reflect back when they encounter obstacles, and transmit them to the bat's ears, which immediately change the direction of flight.

Scientists imitated the method of bat pathfinding and equipped the plane with radar. The radar emits radio waves through the antenna, and when the radio waves encounter obstacles, they are reflected back and displayed on the phosphor screen. From the fluorescent screen of the radar, the pilot can see whether there are any obstacles ahead, so the plane is very safe to fly at night.

Brief introduction. The earliest known bat fossil is the 50-million-year-old index finger ibat in Wyoming, USA.

discovered. More complete bat fossils were later found within the Lake bed of Lake Maisel in Germany, which date back to the Eocene.

At this time, their stomachs contain fossilized insects.

Many of these early bats resemble existing suborders of small bats, making it difficult to reproduce the early stages of their evolution, but they were cochlea.

inner ear) suggests that they almost certainly use echolocation. The earliest fossils similar to the suborder Great Bat date back to about 35 million years ago.