Superheated wing blast!

So, we know that big creatures will generate lots of heat if they're active. We also know that wings are very good at venting excess heat. Now for most animals, this heat isn't exactly spectacular, a few degrees here or there. Of course, if an animal generated more heat because it was really, really big, the effect might be a little more exciting. So let's take a big creature that generates lots of heat. Let's put big wings on this creature that vent the excess heat, and let's say that this creature can control how the heat is vented from its wings. The creature vents the heat to the underside of its massive wings, creating large pockets of very hot air. Then, upon encountering something that the creature doesn't like, it flaps its gargantuan wings and generates a hurricane force blast of scalding hot air.

So the question here is how much heat, and how much wind? For the purposes of this question, we'll go big. Let's say a 2-mile wingspan, each wing from 1/4 to 1 mile in breadth (base to tip), on a creature that is 2 miles long, with the heat generation you would expect from an active animal that size. If you can answer for both raptor-like wings and bat-like wings that would be great. For the purposes of this question ignore things like "how could this creature move" or "how could the wings withstand the force of being flapped" as those are different questions entirely.

Here's a link to my other related questions 1: http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/137872/the-nuclear-dragon

posted almost 6 years ago

Nick‭

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