I assume it’s a 100% chance of death for the fly but IDK. Maybe they can stay in the air long enough to slow down? I’m not sure how fly flight can work at that speed.
I assume it’s a 100% chance of death for the fly but IDK. Maybe they can stay in the air long enough to slow down? I’m not sure how fly flight can work at that speed.
So birds can get their wings broken by sudden gusts while aloft. Without accounting for size (reynolds number) and reaction speed - a fly would suffer a similar fate.
But I’ve seen videos of insects and/or flies hit with directed blasts of air. They react very, very quickly by adjusting orientation and shape. If a fly tucks fast enough it might survive the aerodynamic forces due to its reaction speed, and be left to the fate of where it’s path goes while it slows to a flyable speed.
And size matters. What seems to us a thin and uniform body of air gas for them is thicker and rippling with waves of density and speed. The wrong placement might kill them with pure shear or high pressure, but I suspect they have the ability to surf those waves as well, and maybe even use them to steer through extreme conditions.
The acceleration over time(g force) is determined by the balance between the size and shape of the wing compared to the momentum of the flies body, as long as that proportion is extremely small it would fall below the material strength of the wings connective tissue. Seeing as their wings are extremely small and their momentum is extremely small, the only real variable here is the shape of their wings(technically im referring to its aerodynamic drag versus lift both with respect to the vector of motion, but were just gonna say shape{also when i say “wing” im referring to the area exposed to oncoming atmosphere, which would include the body}). As long as the shape isnt too big in comparison to the momentum, it should be fine.
Tl;dr/eli5: if it tucks its wings it will survive. At that speed if it untucks its wings they get ripped off and the fly becomes a walk.
They experience time slower, to them a second just feels longer. It’s like Neo in permanent “bullet time”.
When I was a kid it was pretty easy to catch one alive in my hand. But now my reflexes have slowed and I can only do it from experience and luckily having large hands.
But my big ass hand smacking one out the air and catching it in the same palm is going to hurt it more than going out a window, and weirdly enough I’ve never killed a fly catching it.
They’re a lot sturdier than people think. Any amount of bounce and they’re cool.