Aerodynamic super model and universal flight simulator

Birds glide, plant seeds bound, falling leaves flutter, and paper sheets tumble. Can all these behaviors be accounted for by a single model? This talk is about our quest to build an all-inclusive aerodynamic model and flight simulator. The main achievement is that our quasi-steady dynamical modeling proves to be unreasonably effective at accounting for steady and unsteady flight modes. We reproduce and explain many past observations and predict new behaviors yet to be explored. The model should be generally applicable to thin wings at intermediate Reynolds numbers, and we foresee many applications for motions in arbitrary fluids, both in understanding biological locomotion as well as for designing biomimetic flying and swimming vehicles.