The fly is quite an amazing creature with wings that can flap 200 times per second, and aerodynamic capabilities at 6 miles per hour that include flying straight up, straight down, or backwards and somersault to an upside down landing on a ceiling. What appear to be two eyes are actually two compound eyes each of which contains 6,000 miniature hexagonal eyes called ommatidia. The fly can outmaneuver any man-made machine at low speeds and do so with very little power. While the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has three shoe-box sized PowerPC-based computers aboard, the fly uses just a few hundred of the neurons in it’s brain.
Rafal Zbikowski in the United Kingdom has been studying the fly for a long time with the hope of building a Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). The insect-like MAV would be a small hand-held flying vehicle that could be used for the purpose of reconnoitering in confined spaces, for example, inside buildings, tunnels and shafts that might be very dangerous places for humans to visit. For example, looking in a dangerous coal mine for survivors of a flood or explosion and other hazardous situations. The military potential is even more dramatic. Imagine a fly-like device intruding a terrorist hideout and hovering while gathering information that could result in saving the lives of innocent people.
The engineering challenges are formidable but there is much focus on emulating the insect-like flapping and actually building an artificial replica of the amazing fly. A workshop on "Reverse Engineering of Insect Flight Control" was conducted to bring the key players together. They are really serious about this and have great respect for the fly.
The rest of us may marvel at the fly at times but their annoying presence also explains the invention of the fly swatter.