The Barnes Wallis Moth Machine was a modified microlight aircraft designed for collecting moths and other flying insects over rainforest canopies. The core machine was a Pegasus Q microlight aircraft. Modifications for moth catching were designed by Charles Cockell and implemented by a team of engineers at Enstone Airfield, UK. The machine was test flown in Oxford by Charles Cockell and then flown over the rainforest canopy in Sumatra, Indonesia in 1993 by Cockell in an effort to catch moths to catalog the diversity of moths in the rainforest as part of a biodiversity study of the

Kerinci Seblat National Park Kerinci Seblat National Park is the largest national park on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. It has a total area of 13,791 km2, and spans four provinces: West Sumatra, Jambi, Bengkulu, and South Sumatra. Geography It is located between 1 ...

. The machine had several modifications for moth catching: 1) Ultraviolet lights under the front of the aircraft for attracting moths during systematic sweeps of the forest, 2) A moth catching device consisting of an inverted funnel with a pleated butterfly net at the end for trapping moths scooped during flight, 3) A forward facing one million candlepower lamp to avoid trees whilst flying during dusk, 4) Two one million candlepower lamps pointing downwards at an angle to estimate height above the forest canopy, using a similar principle to that adopted for night flying during the

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Dams raids in World War 2 and developed by

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

(for whom the machine was named), 5) Infra-red night vision system for improving visibility during night time moth catching, provided by

and worn by the entomologist pilot. The Patrons of the expedition were

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and

. Corporate Patrons were Barbour, British Petroleum, Pilkington and Containerway Ltd. The machine was flown for several moth catching sorties over the rainforest, north of the Sumatran town of Bengkulu during July 1993. Moths were also caught using UV lamps on the ground. During the expedition, whilst attempting to land the moth machine in a rainforest clearing, it clipped the top of a tree and crashed, destroying the machine, although Cockell escaped uninjured.Bernard Levin: Of Moths and Flames, Editorial, The Times, 23 November 1993, 18

References

{{reflist * * * * Individual aircraft