European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 26, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Uke in act Lect the replica Queval Coatus will Flap in huge about once sweeping and twist ing Small wind vanes on the body and a fro scope in Ilde will feed data to the on Board coordinating Complex a human Pilot will radio Wing hands serve an air ioil3 computer controlling Light Symms May to in which also Servos As rudder gears and batteries legs arc  function less to to orc Start t new Portl i Kaki Nam swim Martyn Cowley with Wing of Small scale robot a rubbery membrane stiffened by artificial cartilage covers Carbo fiber another fly7ng dragon Over Texas by Malcolm Browne new York times there was a time Long ago when real dragons soared Over their leathery wings casting monster shadows Over the drab cretaceous landscape far below those huge flying the died out with the dinosaurs some 64 million years but thanks to space age advances in robotics and Struc Tural a startlingly lifelike replica of one of the largest of them will take to the sky later this with flight tests of several prototypes behind a team of Model makers and aerodynamics last week began the task of meshing a Host of Complex gadgets into a single lifelike mechanism that is expected to Fly Well enough to seem As if it had a mind of its the object of building a robot pterosaur is not merely to create a convincing reproduction of a Long extinct scientists expect their mechanical creature to help solve some longstanding puzzles in Pale aerodynamics the study of How some of the earths Early creature managed to knowledge gained along the they May even help engineers design better the robot pterosaur was commissioned by the smithsonian institutions National air and space museum in after a today workshop in july 1984 at the California Institute of technology at which experts in palaeontology and aerodynamics had agreed that a flying replica of pterosaur was the smithsonian plans to have the robot pterosaur appear in on Iii a film it is making to show the interrelations among biological flying creatures and the replica under construction is of a pterosaur named quetzalcoatl us whose Bones were Dis covered in big Bend National in West in the Genus is named after the Aztec god quetzalcoatl the after the Northrop air Craft of experimental flying Wing planes built in the in the quetzalcoatl us had a wingspan of 36 and it is believed to have been the largest flying creature the world has Ever seen larger by far than any present Day or extinct species of aerodynamic principles impose a limit on the size a flying animal May and quetzal coat us Northrop is close to that the project is under the direction of leading experts from two Fields that ordinarily have Little to do with each one is Paul the aeronautical Engineer whose human powered air plane crossed the English Channel in thereby winning the Kremer the largest prize in aviation the other major participant is Wann Langston the univer sity of Texas Pale oncologist whose assistant discovered the Only known Fossil of quetzalcoatl us completing the in replica and getting it to Fly for barely five minutes will Cost about underwritten mainly by the Johnson Wax company and the Smithson ans Ajr and space the company Maccready leads Zerovi Rosment of which is building the expects to lose you when we started this Maccready told a i thought we could just go into the technical literature on How Birds handle the problem of maintaining stability and and use that information to design our but we found that there was no such technical theres a lot on Overall Avian Bird Breeding All kinds of things but nothing on stability and according to Martyn one of the aircraft builders working for no one has yet made a Model Bird that could Fly Al though toy Birds with flapping wings can flutter around for Short Leonardo a Vinci designed a Man powered flying machine with flapping wings an Orni but neither his machine nor any of the Many versions that followed Ever got into the complicating Northrop was not a Bird it had no and therefore lacked the kind of pitch control essential to air planes and most How could a creature with no Tail and with such an intrinsically unstable aerodynamic shape manage to Fly without crashing Birds and aircraft have to control three attitudes to maintain flight Roll and pitch is the nose up or nos Down attitude and Yaw is the nose right or nose left of was one of the biggest puzzles we Maccready we that some melting Birds lose their Tail features and yet seem to have no trouble controlling after experimenting with several we realized that the answer must be in the Way they move their by sweeping its wings Forward or backward while flapping them up and a Bird can move its Center or lift ahead of or behind its Center of and thus change its even without a we made and studied a lot of videotapes of flying he and concluded that our creatures wings would have to have at least two movements up and and fore and to control Yaw and the wings probably will also have to to give up the kind of control offered by the flaps and spoil ers of an air plane extreme lightness and strength Are also essential in a flying pterosaur and the experience the Maccready group had in developing the structures of Man powered aircraft is helping to attain an aerodynamic Ideal that evaded earlier ornithopter the replicas Bones Are tubes made by wrapping car Bon fiber tape around forms and curing the resin Binder that holds the tape in the resulting featherlight tubes Are lighter and stronger than the Bones of Maccready which includes his sons Parker and is trying to incorporate every scrap of information unearthed from the Fossil record into their flying sometimes the things they learn make their task for Northrop had a kind of hand Midway along the leading Edge of its and this hand May have helped with flight the animals outer Wing was supported by a single very Long Bone corresponding to a Finger the other three Fin All very protruded from the wings leading and May have helped the animal change the flow of air Over its thereby controlling Langston turns up bad news for the builders As he studies his fossils and Sills for More Langston re Canty revised his estimates and concluded that the creature had a substantially longer neck than wed Maccready that really complicated what was already a terrible stability problem for the team has yet to prove that either their replica or the animal on which it is based could some palaeontologists have contended that Large Ptero Saurs could Glide Only by leaping from High and were unable to sustain flight by flapping their but Maccready believes that the worst of the problems Are and that the in replica will Fly on As the builders Progress from crude to More Complex working components have begun to look More life nearly Complete is a Hal scale pterosaur whose Carbo fiber Bones support a ski like Mem Brane stiffened by artificial cartilage it looks and feels like a living and it is expected to Fly the beasts Muscles will be High Speed electric motors that drive the wings and other parts through worn Cranks and Power will come from a Bank of batteries Likely to be one of the heavier elements in a flying machine that must weigh no More than 140 but the hardest and most important says Mac is giving the creature the equivalent of a when we learn to ride a we constantly sense changes in the stability of our making Small adjust ments in steering and position to stay it becomes so instinctive we forget what were but the process is nevertheless exceedingly imagine How Complex it is for a Bird to sense the slightest changes in wind direction and changes in balance and Speed and and then do All the right our creature will have to do some of those Byjah Debrody new York times millions of americans will be Jet Ting across the United states and overseas this in Means millions of vacationing americans will be starting their time of rest and or adventure and feeling tired and headache and out of it could be Days before they feel Normal Able to enjoy their these people will not be the victims of a but of a condition known As Jet the unwitting consequence of our ability to be transported across three or More time zones in less than a As More and More including scientists and become frequent fliers to Distant the causes of Jet lag and ways to counteract it have attracted considerable professional in the last few several new approaches have been proposed to minimize the effects of Jet lag and thus make vacations More enjoyable More of the if we moved from place to place using animal trans motor ships or by the time we reached a Distant our bodies would have More or less adapted to changes in the duration of Sun Light and darkness it takes the body about one Day to adjust for each time zone Many want to get where they Are going and that Means using High Speed Jet trav which allows an insufficient adjustment a flight from the Eastern United states to for could leave us out of sync for As Long As six Days after or about on third of the average vacation for travel to the far the time change throws us off by half a Day when our bodies think it is it is Day and vice this could mean a two week period of internal by the time we Are feeling healthy it is almost time to go and the flight Home will Force us to make a two week adjustment in the body we have Many More than one about 100 different biochemical and hormonal rhythms Are coordinated by some Asyet unidentified Central Mech page14 the stars and stripes How to minimize Jet lag the various rhythms determine when we Are Alert and when we Are when we feel hot or and when we Are most or least Clear decisive and these rhythms Are not they Are programmed and can be repeatedly reprogrammed by factors called Zei Geber German for which Are external and internal stimuli that help our bodies reset their the primary Zei Geber is the intensity and duration of others include work mental stimulation and social even if we do nothing to purposely change the body sense of Day and it will automatically readjust As we Are exposed to such factors in the new time different internal rhythms require varying lengths of time to make the while some can make a three hour switch in a others take As Long As seven in following a trip to Europe or it will take a minimum of two weeks for All body rhythms to become fully synchronized once until that travellers May not feel quite up to How far Short of Normal we feel will the younger the the less discomfort experienced and the faster the adaptation to changes in time Short sleepers and so called morning people Are said to have less trouble than do night per haps because those who customarily Wake up Early Are exposed to More hours of Daylight at their and is the most powerful most people have an easier time flying East to West when they initially will experience a longer than West to East when the first Day is Cut probably because the natural circadian rhythm is really about not hours Long it is easier for us to adjust to the longer Day than to the Shorter people who travel alone generally have a harder time adjusting than those in a probably because the social influences and scheduling demands of the group act As there Are a number of time honoured approaches that Many people find if there is enough warning and their schedules travellers can try to preset their biological clock determine the number of hours for which one will have to adjust and that Many Days Start shifting sleep times and meal times one hour each in this travellers will arive at their destinations with their body clocks appropriately Start out Well rested and dont plan demanding activities for the first Day try to schedule arrivals so that they coincide with Normal bedtime at Home in other take a Day flight to go to sleep soon after arriving and try to sleep until morning adopt the eating and sleeping hours of the new take a Short if during the but try not to go to bed too if sleep seems try to exercise a Little or take a hot but avoid using Tranquili Zers or sleeping pills because these will further delay the body drink lots of Plain fluids on the since dehydration the atmosphere aloft can be As dry As a terrestrial desert aggravates the distress of Jet sweetened soft drinks and alcohol compound the prob Lem because they Are avoid smoking and eating big meals on the plane these add to fatigue and to the stress on the As often As move around while on the try some relaxing isometric exercises while seated Many airlines provide instructions in their inflight one or More of three newer methods May prove even More effective mental Light exposure and the Jet lag diet developed by Charles Ehret of the Argonne National Laboratory in Edith a new York says that to help the body rapidly readjust to new time she has taught Many people to use a simple imagery the technique involves the creation of mental pictures of what those people would be doing at a Given they were already at their travellers Start As soon As they Board the plane by setting their watches to what the time is at that moment at their if they Are served a even if the meal is at what will be breakfast time when they they should imagine that it actually is if they Are preparing to Nap and it is bedtime at their they should pretend that they Are going to sleep for the night and imagine going through bedtime logo causes of Jet lag and ways to counteract it have drawn lots of professional during Daylight travellers should visualize their and when they they should go through the Day As the inhabitants of that place perhaps going to bed a Little earlier than based on his studies of the effects of Daylight on a hormone called which May be the body main Alfred Lewy of the Oregon health sciences University in Portland offers another bit of simple advice when flying West to go outside Early in the morning for several but when flying East to stay outside in the late ehrets diet plan is a More complicated it should be started four Days before what would be breakfast time on the first Day of the diet should be a feast Day for which the traveler should eat heartily a High protein breakfast and lunch and a High carbohydrate but Low protein drink no Coffee or Tea except Between the hours of 3 and 5 the next Day of the diet is a fast Day on which Light meals Are served simple fruits and and again no Coffee except for the hours pre scribed on the first the fast Day is intended to deplete the livers Supply of carbohydrates and prepare the body clock for on the next two the Fea Standfast Cycle is with one difference on the fourth Day of the people travelling Westward drink a caffeinated beverage in the while people travelling eastward drink a caffeinated beverage Between 6 and 11 regardless of the directions in which they Are travellers Are supposed to break their fourth Day fast at what should be breakfast time at their destination by eating a High protein Ehret cautions against sleeping past this break fast even if it Means getting up in the Middle of the night on the plane to eat people following the diet might consider bringing along a High protein break fast from since planes cannot be counted on to serve an appropriate meal at the right a substantial Sandwich of Peanut butter or Turkey will people interested in the diet can obtain a Wallet sized plastic coated card describing the plan by writing to ant Jet lag Argonne National 9700 South Cass june the stars and stripes Page 15