Patterns & Metaphors
Aerial animal locomotion - flight
Template:
The structure of animals moving through the air by true flight (in contrast to gliding or soaring) reflects their locomotor habits. True flight is produced by the simultaneous rotation of the left and right wings in a circle or figure-of-eight, which has the appearance of alternating up and down movement. This cycle produces the upward thrust required to overcome gravity and the forward thrust necessary to overcome drag. Lift is produced by the unequal velocities of the air across the upper and lower wing surfaces when the downward and backward phase of the cycle forces the air backward and the body forward. The actual flight pattern and wing movement varies with the different insect, bird or mammal species capable of flight. Guidance and stability are provided by minor alteration in the symmetry of the arched wings.
Metaphor:
The structure of individual personalities or groups reflects their mode of movement in relation to public or peer group opinion. Certain groups with two (or more) opposing factions are able to ensure that the cycle of actions of each is the reflection of the other. The complementary cycles produce the force necessary to counteract public or peer group opinion, enabling the group to rise to a more advantageous social position or move to a new position. The actual cycle of actions employed, how these are generated, and the resulting pattern of movement varies with the different kinds of group capable of this form of movement. Stability and guidance are provided by continually alternating emphasis on each faction (e.g. the correct adjustment at one time may be 'up' on 'right' and 'down' on 'left', which will tend to cell for the reverse immediately afterwards as a counteracting adjustment).
[Features] Simultaneous mirror-image movements of the complementary wings in each pair. Manoeverability is only possible by unbalancing the emphases for an appropriate period of time.
[Contrast] Extreme factions of a group are often distinguished as right and left 'wings', especially in the case of political parties. In individual modes of thought, right and left brain forms have been distinguished. A group or programme is recognized as having 'taken off' or able 'to fly' if it is able to coordinate its movements appropriately and overcome the resistance of the environment to that initiative. But although terms such as 'wing' are used, the manner in which such wings function together (rather individually or consecutively) to engender social movement, and guide its development, has not been explored. The counteracting controls, or constraints of one on the other, are in fact the subject of acrimonious controversy.
[Keys] Controlling imbalance to achieve manoeuvrability. Flight MGder a variety of conditions and with different manoeverability requirements. Aircraft flight, flap movement; control of yawing, pitching and rolling. Controlled turns. Formation flying. Takeoff and landing techniques. Wingless aircraft and propulsive guidance systems.<
