Eli5: how do birds like Falcons come out of a 200+mph dive without being ripped apart by air resistance when they spread their wings?

Question

Like the title says. I know Falcons and raptors can dive at 200+ mph. So when they spread their wings to slow down how do they handle the insane force that they would be experiencing?

In: 160

Answer 1

Kind of worth mentioning that the forces in a dive at steady state balance out. The maximum force on the wings/body is the weight of the bird. When the bird is pulling out of a dive it’s not just throwing it’s wings out recklessly, it’s progressively pulling from 1g to 2g to 3g etc. The aerodynamic forces to pull a xg dive are just x*(weight of the bird). There’s no sharp transition here that the bird hasn’t carefully studied.