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Dolphins Play with Drone "Flying Fish"

The University of Michigan’s Flying Fish drone isn’t the first robotic plane that can take off and land on water by itself. The Pentagon-funded machine recently became "the world’s most unusual dolphin toy," too. LiveScience has the story — and the footage to prove it. Remarkably, when the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] was landing in […]

The University of Michigan's Flying Fish drone isn't the first robotic plane that can take off and land on water by itself. The Pentagon-funded machine recently became "the world's most unusual dolphin toy," too. LiveScience has the story -- and the footage to prove it.

Dolphin_drone1
*Remarkably, when the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] was landing in the sea, scientists on the research vessel John Martin monitoring the tests saw dolphins swim over to investigate. *

*To the researchers, it appeared that the dolphins thought the UAV was a pelican diving for fish, said Ella Atkins, a researcher from U-M's
Aerospace Engineering Department. *

Finding the craft wasn't a bird that had spotted tasty fish swimming below, the pod of three dolphins began playing with it, repeatedly swimming in formation with the little seaplane and diving underneath on one side to surface again on the other.

It's not surprising the playful dolphins initially were fooled. The Flying
Fish is about the size and weight of a large seabird.

*"We studied seabirds seriously," said Guy
Meadows, director of the U-M Hydrodynamics Laboratories. He had the idea for the unmanned seaplane while watching flying fish pop up from the sea, soar over the waves, and drop down again. *

Seabirds are "all about the same size — about 20 pounds with a 2-meter wingspan," said Meadows. "It turns out that, aerodynamically speaking, that's a sweet spot to be flying close to the water. Our plane is about the size of a large pelican."

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