D. Landrum

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

D. Landrum is a researcher whose work bridges experimental fluid dynamics and bioinspired flight, with a focus on understanding and replicating the unsteady aerodynamics of natural fliers. His key research areas include experimental characterization of insect and bird flight, scaling laws for flapping-wing vehicles, and the application of these principles to extraterrestrial environments. A major contribution is his experimental work on the Monarch butterfly, where he developed an optical tracking facility to capture free-flight kinematics over many sequential flaps, carefully modifying reflective markers to minimize mass effects. This study, with 44 citations, provided high-fidelity data on climbing flight. Landrum also made a notable contribution to planetary exploration by investigating the feasibility of bioinspired flapping-wing flight on Mars. His 2019 paper, with 9 citations, used a 3D Navier-Stokes solver to verify that unsteady lift mechanisms—such as delayed stall and rotational lift—can sustain a 5-gram vehicle hovering in the thin Martian atmosphere. This work demonstrates a zeroth-order scaling method for designing vehicles that operate under drastically different gravitational and atmospheric conditions, opening new possibilities for aerial exploration beyond Earth.