Next time you're frustrated trying to swat a fly, know that science has at least learned why it's so hard, discovering some flies can maneuver like a fighter jet.
Researchers studying fruit flies discovered the flying insects can harness aerodynamic forces in just a wing beat or two and change course practically instantaneously to avoid your attempt to swat them
Like a fighter jet, they can bank away in different direction faster than the blink of an eye at the first sign of a threat, a study in the journal Science reported.
The maneuver occurs at five times the speed of the flies' normal turning speed when it's not threatened, researchers at the University of Washington say.
The difference is in how it accomplishes the maneuver, they say; instead of turning left or right on their "yaw" axis, like a car on a road, the flies make a banked turn, rolling and pitching their bodies like an aircraft.
"A lot of other people working in the field ... would not have predicted the fly could rotate itself so quickly," study co-author Michael Dickinson, a UW neurobiologist, says.
Although the study was made with fruit flies, it likely explains how almost any kind of fly is difficult for a human to successfully swat, the researchers say.
Using special cameras capable of filming at 7,500 frames a second in a cage filled with the fruit flies, the researchers were able to record and analyze their flight maneuvers and the wing beat actions.
"Based on the direction of the looming threat -- whether from the back, the front, or the side -- the flies perform a different type of escape maneuver that is very controlled," study co-author Florian Muijres says.
"These flies roll up to 90 degrees -- some are almost upside down -- to maximize their force, and escape," he says.
That must require sophisticated calculations in the flies' tiny brains, he says.
"The fact that flies roll to the side is maybe not that surprising," he says, but "the surprise is really the accuracy and speed combination."
Despite their small brains, fruit flies can perform in-flight maneuvers much more complex that those found in many other flying insects, the researchers say.
The behavior "is very fast, and it's completely innate -- the fly doesn't need to learn how to do this," co-author Dickinson says.
