WHALE'S FLIPPERS

           

              An adult humpback weighs about 30 tons as much as a loaded truck and has a relatively stiff body with large wing like flippers.this 40 feet long long animal is remarkably agile under water.
              Which particularly intrigued researchers was how this stiff-bodied creature could turn in what seem to be impossibly tight circles. They discovered that the secret is in the shape of the whale's flippers. The leading edge of its flippers is not smooth, like an aircraft wing, but serrated, with a row of protruding bumps called tubercles.
             

                 As the whale slices through the water, these tubercles increase lift and reduce drag. The journal National History explains that the tubercles make the water accelerate over the flipper in an organized, rotating flow, even when the whale is rising at very steep angles.
                 There are many practical applications. Aircraft wings are based on the design would evidently need fewer wing flaps or the other mechanical devices to alter air-flow. Such wings would be safer and easier to maintain. Bio-mechanics expert John Long believes that some day soon "we may well see every single jetliner with the bumps of humpback whale flippers."