world champion athletes are already at
the top of their sport breaking records
and setting new goals in each
competition but can they push themselves
to tackle challenges from the animal
kingdom performing feats no human has
before
this is nature's limits I'm Alex Danis I
am a scientist a filmmaker and an animal
lover we're here in Arizona to meet with
indoor skydiver Maya Kochanski Maya is a
world champion indoor skydiver she and I
are going to meet some hummingbirds find
out what makes them some of the world's
most incredible aerial acrobats and then
see if she can replicate some of their
amazing moves I went to the tow for the
first time when I was 10
it's pretty much like the only sport
that I really really enjoy and so I
started flying I'm a very artistic
person I really like doing like all
types of art drawing it reminds me a lot
more of an art than a sport even though
it is very physical
[Music]
so that was amazing they get absolutely
impressive how do you do that oh cool I
push on the air depending on where I
want to go so if I want to go up I'll
push down and if I want to go down I'll
make myself small so this reminds me a
little bit of bird flight perhaps and I
think there's some stuff I saw you doing
there that you could probably replicate
from something like a hummingbird so did
you see a lot of hummingbirds growing up
not really because I'm from Europe and
there's no hummingbirds there and I
thought they were like these mystical
creatures like fairies and I was like
really shocked when I saw one oh there
it is you go so fast I love them so much
so they weigh so little do they need to
be beating their wings like a lot to
stay up they are so small but they're
beating their wings depending on the
species forty to eighty beats per second
if they were just like they kept that
metabolism happening they would almost
starve it seems like these birds have so
many qualities that make it actually
quite difficult to live yes so they're
really built for the environments that
they live in one of their main sources
of food is flowers and they have to be
able to hover to drink nectar from those
flowers their wings set up is much
closer to the way that insect wings flap
then it is the way that bird wings flap
so rather than just sort of going up and
down like a bird they make a lot more of
a figure eight so they're actually
pushing up as they push down and as
their wings go the other way too so
they're getting lift on both the up and
the down stroke their pectoralis muscles
are pulling their wings through the
downstroke and they're super coracoid
muscles are pulling their wings through
the upstroke the pectoralis muscle is
pretty much the same as our pectoral
muscles in humans but in humans the
Supra coracoid iasts is actually split
into two muscles though they still do
the same job of pulling our arms up and
back at our shoulder joints the funny
part is that in tunnel flying one of the
most important muscles is like all of
the shoulders along with like the back
and
around here at the arms that's crazy so
it really is similar you were really
working out your flight muscles
essentially because it's really those
same muscle groups that they're using
for their wings that you're using the
fly in the end the birds generate about
75% of their lift on their down stroke
and about 25% of their lift on their
upstroke people have calculated how fast
some of these hummingbirds can actually
do these turns and inversions so I'd
love to see if we can sort of put you in
that tunnel and sort of start tracking
with some high-speed cameras and see how
fast you're going - it would be really
cool to see how fast I couldn't spend
some of my moves because they go pretty
ridiculously fast despite their
biological differences Maya's going to
be trying to match some of the aerial
dynamics of the hummingbird first she'll
be trying some back flips and turns
scientists have calculated that some
hummingbirds can pitch up the move they
would make to do a back flip at a speed
of around one point one three
revolutions per second this would if
they were so inclined
let them do seven backflips in 10
seconds scientists have found that the
hummingbirds can do fast yaw turns
revolving to their sides at around 1.5
revolutions per second
lots of hummingbirds also perform a
stereotyped evasive maneuver in which
they turn away from a threat by rolling
up and over onto their back and then
rotating away when they're trying to
evade something the Magnificent
hummingbird can do this in 0.2 seconds
finally we're gonna have Maya try out
some mating display dances like the
shuttle dance of the costa's hummingbird
awesome
super cool how did that feel doing some
of those backflips rolls turns yeah I
think I managed to do everything pretty
good I think you did too
let's go check out the high-speed
footage to see exactly how quickly you
did some of those moves first up is
going to be your series of backflips you
did nine in 11 seconds and we know that
the hummingbirds can do seven rotations
in 10 seconds so you are going faster
than the hummingbirds when you're doing
these rotations laughing so one of the
next things we had you do was the yaw
turns and you did 3 in 3 seconds
so you're doing about one a second and
so we know that the hummingbirds can do
about two in a second I believe that can
do a lot faster the other thing I want
to look at right here is that evasive
maneuver so that's sort of half cork
that you were trying to do they can do
it in about 0.2 seconds you did that in
about two seconds which is pretty fast
and you how do you feel like you did on
that sort of maneuver that looks a
little bit awkward to me I had a little
bit of trouble trying to make it go
straight forwards instead of like
smacking into the net cool so do we have
some things that we probably want to
retry then pretty much everything okay
we can do that we can do that we have
more time
[Music]
on her second attempt my completed ten
rotations in seven seconds this would
equal a pitch up speed of 1.4
revolutions per second which is just
faster than the hummingbirds 1.3
revolutions per second Maya also
completed three yaw turns in one second
by placing herself into a more
aerodynamic body position her yaw
rotation of three revolutions per second
would therefore be twice that of the
hummingbirds 1.5 revolutions per second
Maya completed her evasive maneuver in
1.2 seconds this was slower than the
Magnificent hummingbirds 0.2 seconds
which covers only ten total wing beats
stringing these high-speed rolls and
turns together into complicated
maneuvers is where the hummingbirds
abilities really shine finally Maya
attempted the impressive shuttle display
of the costa's hummingbird
again a fun interpretation of one of
nature's fastest dance moves
it was awesome to get to hang out with
Maya and see some birds and talk a
little bit about how their flights were
the same and different so I never really
thought that the way that I fly is
similar to the way that birds fly
however hummingbirds hover a lot and do
all these swoops and things that are a
lot tighter then once that normal birds
do which definitely reminds me more of
flying you could see how I'm pushing
away from the wind and then swooping and
doing all of these things even with my
arms as little substitutes for wings if
you liked this video make sure to
subscribe to Red Bulls channel give it a
like and leave us a comment about what
animal and athlete pairing you would
want to see next
you