Birds have long been our inspiration for flight, and researchers at Princeton University have found a new trick in their arsenal: covert feathers. These small feathers on top of birds’ wings lay ...

For one paper published by Wissa, then-postdoc Girguis Sedky, and several graduate students in October 2024, the team studied the group of feathers on a bird called covert feathers, of which little is ...

Researchers attached covert feather-inspired flaps to a 3D-printed model airplane wing and mounted it in a wind tunnel to explore the role of covert feathers in bird flight. By precisely measuring ...

Postdoctoral researcher Girguis O. Sedky sitting inside of the wind tunnel, showing the covert feather-inspired flaps attached to the 3D-printed model airplane wing. The flaps deploy automatically ...