Drogon's size

[noobilly]

I was rereading ADWD, and in the scene where Drogon carries Danaerys off from the fighting pits, his wingspan is described as "twenty feet from wingtip to wingtip", which seemed pretty big to me. However when I checked Wiki, it said that Pteranodon (the one in Jurassic Park) had a wingspan of twenty five feet, and its estimated weight ranged from 20 plus to around 90 kilograms. Seems only around the size of one human.

However we know that Drogon is definitely bigger than a person, since it carried Dany without much trouble, and tossed a few fighters around in melee easily. How big would you estimate Drogon to be in terms of weight and length?

[Raventhal]

I was rereading ADWD, and in the scene where Drogon carries Danaerys off from the fighting pits, his wingspan is described as "twenty feet from wingtip to wingtip", which seemed pretty big to me. However when I checked Wiki, it said that Pteranodon (the one in Jurassic Park) had a wingspan of twenty five feet, and its estimated weight ranged from 20 plus to around 90 kilograms. Seems only around the size of one human.

However we know that Drogon is definitely bigger than a person, since it carried Dany without much trouble, and tossed a few fighters around in melee easily. How big would you estimate Drogon to be in terms of weight and length?

Rhaegal's head was bigger than a horse so we can assume that Drogon's is much bigger. I think 20 feet tip to tip is a bit smallish to be called a "monster sized" dragon. That would give the dragon around 7-9 foot wings if you give a slinder 2-4 foot body. My body stretched out as far as it can go is about 8-9 feet which is not very big for a huge dragon.

An F-15 has a 42 foot wing span and is a "smallish" plane. From the description I would assume at least twenty feet for each wings and a body that's at least 4 feet wide. Especially if arrows and crossbolts had little effect besides tattering wings a bit. From the TV show the dragons are bat winged/like bipeds http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7_FAwA8olHU/Tix5hrJ2GkI/AAAAAAAAEAA/iGHL2z6VPwQ/s1600/dragonsice.jpg so there wings would be very big in comparison to their bodies.

[Fearsome Fred]

I was rereading ADWD, and in the scene where Drogon carries Danaerys off from the fighting pits, his wingspan is described as "twenty feet from wingtip to wingtip", which seemed pretty big to me. However when I checked Wiki, it said that Pteranodon (the one in Jurassic Park) had a wingspan of twenty five feet, and its estimated weight ranged from 20 plus to around 90 kilograms. Seems only around the size of one human.

The Andean Condor, which is one of the largest birds, has a wingspan of up to 10.2 feet, and can weigh up to 33 pounds.

If you increase all three of its dimensions by a factor of 2, then you would have a wingspan of 20.4 feet, and a weight of 33 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 264 pounds.

If you make allowances for the magical nature of dragons (which you have to do anyway, because otherwise a flying creature that large could barely exist at all), you could potentially have an even heavier creature relative to its wingspan. This is what is implied by most flying-dragon illustrations anyway.

[Free Northman]

Martin has said that Dragons don't make aerodynamic sense, and that they fly by magic.

But I raised the point before that a 20 foot wingspan still makes Drogon less than twice as big as an Albatross, which can have a 13 foot wingspan.

Daeny's dragons are still pitifully small when compared to Balerion the Black Dread, who cast entire villages into shadow when he flew over them, and who could swallow an aurochs whole. From that description, I would give Balerion a wingspan of at least 300 feet.

The point is, at this rate, Daeny's dragons will need another 10 years at least before they approach a size that will allow her to invade Westeros like Aegon the Conqueror did.

So we can expect Daeny to arrive in Westeros when the next summer arrives.

[boojam]

"Dragons are fire made flesh"

[Ibbison from Ibben]

I had the distinct feeling that Drogon was rather borderline when it came to bearing a rider. Dany hadn't seem him recently, but there were no indications she thought Rhaegal or Viserion were big enough to be ridden. Dany probably weighs around 100 lbs. A 264lb dragon could probably lift her, but Drogon was working hard to do so.

Don't even bother comparing a dragon to an F-15. Given top airspeed, wing loading, power loading, and aspect ratio considerations, you'd be better off using a P-26. (A mid '30s monoplane.)

[StarkofWinterfell]

Martin has said that Dragons don't make aerodynamic sense, and that they fly by magic.

But I raised the point before that a 20 foot wingspan still makes Drogon less than twice as big as an Albatross, which can have a 13 foot wingspan.

Daeny's dragons are still pitifully small when compared to Balerion the Black Dread, who cast entire villages into shadow when he flew over them, and who could swallow an aurochs whole. From that description, I would give Balerion a wingspan of at least 300 feet.

The point is, at this rate, Daeny's dragons will need another 10 years at least before they approach a size that will allow her to invade Westeros like Aegon the Conqueror did.

So we can expect Daeny to arrive in Westeros when the next summer arrives.

That's Martin's lame and lazy cop-out excuse for everything. I personally hate it when he says that.

We know of large reptile dinosaurs that were able to achieve flight called pterodactyls. By his explanation, pterodactyls were able to fly only through magic.

You also have to understand that Drogon is only a year or two old and that the more a dragon eats the bigger it becomes.

Give him time to grow, don't jump the gun so soon

[Alyssane]

We don't know exactly at what rate dragons grow, but we do know that they never stop growing. Bearing that in mind, GRRM has to make sure that they don't grow too quickly or else their size could become problematic really quickly. Drogon seemed to struggle carrying Dany the first time, but as long as he keeps eating and being free of dungeons he should progress at a reasonable rate. Give it a few month or another year.

[Auska]

There's nothing impossible about a huge flying lizard. It's just a power/weight ratio thing (although even given special musculature, gas bladders &c. the wingspan would still be pretty enormous). The problem is that the evolutionary steps up to such a form are unlikely. That could be explained away with less magic – in fact, it could even be explained “scientifically” by genetic manipulation.

[Free Northman]

We don't know exactly at what rate dragons grow, but we do know that they never stop growing. Bearing that in mind, GRRM has to make sure that they don't grow too quickly or else their size could become problematic really quickly. Drogon seemed to struggle carrying Dany the first time, but as long as he keeps eating and being free of dungeons he should progress at a reasonable rate. Give it a few month or another year.

No matter how fast Drogon grows, I think one thing is clear: We aren't going to see dragons of Balerion's size in this series. At least, not dragons that were recently born.

If a dragon never stops growing, and if Balerion was 200 years old when he died, then there is no way Drogon will approach him in size after a mere 1 or 2 years, or even after 10 or 20 years for that matter.

So most likely Drogon will be 2 or even 3 times as big as he is now by the time Daenerys heads West, but he won't have more than a 60 foot wingspan. If he has 190 years of growing left, there is a lot of growing left to do before he reaches Balerion's age and size.

More likely if we ARE to see a Balerion sized dragon in the series, it won't be one of Daeny's dragons, but rather an ancient dragon woken from some type of stasis under the Wall or Winterfell by Jon (Azor Ahai).

I recall Naga's bones on the Iron Islands. They are the bones of an ancient dragon which by all accounts was maybe even bigger than Balerion.

So I would not be surprised to see Danerys arrive in Westeros with three 50 foot wingspan dragons, only for Jon to wake an ancient dragon from Skagos (Stone) that is a monstrous 400 footer. That would be cool.

[Alyssane]

So I would not be surprised to see Danerys arrive in Westeros with three 50 foot wingspan dragons, only for Jon to wake an ancient dragon from Skagos (Stone) that is a monstrous 400 footer. That would be cool.

That would awesome. The entire time Drogon was gone, a part of me kept hoping that he would just show up at the Wall and find Jon even though I knew it wouldn't happen. I don't think he's old enough to fly across the Narrow Sea yet.

[Selmy]

The point is, at this rate, Daeny's dragons will need another 10 years at least before they approach a size that will allow her to invade Westeros like Aegon the Conqueror did.

So we can expect Daeny to arrive in Westeros when the next summer arrives.

Huh?

We don't really know the growth rate of dragons, so attaching a timetable seems silly.

Who says Drogon needs to be as big as Balerion?

[boojam]

We don't really know the growth rate of dragons, so attaching a timetable seems silly.

We know when Drogon was born, and he has been a 'free range dragon' since that time, and we kind of know how big he was at the end of ADwD , he seems to have regular chow, so can't we figure out the rate from the novels?

Someone with a better sense of time lapse will have too fill in here, cause from George all I can estimate is something like two years, which always seemed a bit short for all that been going on.

(If he starts eating horses he's gonna blow up like a blimp.)

[noobilly]

Actually for growth rates, dragons might not necessarily grow at a steady rate. Maybe they could grow extra fast during "puberty" and settle down to a slower rate after that. But yes I doubt we will see dragons of Balerion's size. Nagga, if it were real, was a sea dragon, and sea creatures can always grow much larger than land or flying animals I suppose.

The estimation of Drogon's weight at 264 pounds does seem a bit light to me though, given that Rhaegal's head is mentioned as "bigger than a horse". For comparison, a 20 foot long anaconda with a 12 inch diameter weighs around 330 pounds on average. If Rhaegal's head is "bigger than a horse" then the dragons certainly seem bigger than that to me.

If the wings were 20 feet long EACH, that would make more sense to me.

[Red Dirt]

The Andean Condor, which is one of the largest birds, has a wingspan of up to 10.2 feet, and can weigh up to 33 pounds.

If you increase all three of its dimensions by a factor of 2, then you would have a wingspan of 20.4 feet, and a weight of 33 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 264 pounds.

If you make allowances for the magical nature of dragons (which you have to do anyway, because otherwise a flying creature that large could barely exist at all), you could potentially have an even heavier creature relative to its wingspan. This is what is implied by most flying-dragon illustrations anyway.

Unfortunately flying ability does not increase in a linear fashion in any dimension. The truth is to accept flying dragons, pegasi, or any other mythical flying creature, we simply must let go of our reality. There is a reason the genre is called fantasy.

[Fire Eater]

That's Martin's lame and lazy cop-out excuse for everything. I personally hate it when he says that.

We know of large reptile dinosaurs that were able to achieve flight called pterodactyls. By his explanation, pterodactyls were able to fly only through magic.

You also have to understand that Drogon is only a year or two old and that the more a dragon eats the bigger it becomes.

Give him time to grow, don't jump the gun so soon

I agree. The key to flight using wings like Drogon's is to give him stronger arm and breast muscles compared to other animals for his wings. You can call it super strength for his wings.

[Tsavong Lah]

I thing I would mention in this discussion is the idea of the unreliable POV. A regular person, without a convenient thing to compare it to (with a known length), can easily be off by a decent margin.

The difference between 20 and 25 feet can be pretty large. If we go by the rough formula used above (essentially cubing the wingspans and comparing in order to find a ratio of size), means that 25 feet would lead to a dragon of about double the mass of a 20 footer. And a 30 foot wingspan could be up to 3.5 times the size. Also, a Dragon isn't going to be as light, per volume, as a bird. I'm pretty sure based on what we've seen we can say that dragon bones aren't hollow and aren't light either.

I'd say that Drogon weights probably a minimum of 500 lbs, and could be as much as a ton.

[noobilly]

I thing I would mention in this discussion is the idea of the unreliable POV. A regular person, without a convenient thing to compare it to (with a known length), can easily be off by a decent margin.

The difference between 20 and 25 feet can be pretty large. If we go by the rough formula used above (essentially cubing the wingspans and comparing in order to find a ratio of size), means that 25 feet would lead to a dragon of about double the mass of a 20 footer. And a 30 foot wingspan could be up to 3.5 times the size. Also, a Dragon isn't going to be as light, per volume, as a bird. I'm pretty sure based on what we've seen we can say that dragon bones aren't hollow and aren't light either.

I'd say that Drogon weights probably a minimum of 500 lbs, and could be as much as a ton.

You do have a point there about the unreliable narrator. However now when I think back on the physics on it, it wouldn't work that way. In real life, since the weight is cubed whiile the wingspan is only doubled, 5 feet of extra wingspan would never be able to support another 100 % of mass.

Of course, this is a fantasy series. However since the dragons are not written as particularly magical apart from the fire breath (eg: they can't talk, do magic spells or shapeshift), I find a discussion on their aerodynamical properties and size quite interesting.

[Red Dirt]

You do have a point there about the unreliable narrator. However now when I think back on the physics on it, it wouldn't work that way. In real life, since the weight is cubed whiile the wingspan is only doubled, 5 feet of extra wingspan would never be able to support another 100 % of mass.

Of course, this is a fantasy series. However since the dragons are not written as particularly magical apart from the fire breath (eg: they can't talk, do magic spells or shapeshift), I find a discussion on their aerodynamical properties and size quite interesting.

:agree:

I mentioned earlier the non-linearity of flight dynamics, but you brought the dimensions, thank you.

What that means is that to accept dragons that are "fantasy art" pretty we have to forgive some real life physics. Don't try to make Drogon a real life creature, he is a fiction that we enjoy.

[Tsavong Lah]

You do have a point there about the unreliable narrator. However now when I think back on the physics on it, it wouldn't work that way. In real life, since the weight is cubed whiile the wingspan is only doubled, 5 feet of extra wingspan would never be able to support another 100 % of mass.

Of course, this is a fantasy series. However since the dragons are not written as particularly magical apart from the fire breath (eg: they can't talk, do magic spells or shapeshift), I find a discussion on their aerodynamical properties and size quite interesting.

You are right in that the physics doesn't work.

However, pretty much never in fantasy has a dragon been portrayed with dimensions that would work with physics. Anyone expecting that is being unrealistic. Besides, we know that Dragons are directly tied to magic in the world, as magic waned when they died, and is coming back with the return of dragons. So in my mind, the most important factor is that the dragons 'look' right, meaning they have dimensions that look good to the human eye (and not necessarily in line with physics). So in that case, there is probably a range, though not incredibly large, of ratios between length, width, and height. That means most dragons will have roughly the same proportions even if they differ in size, so the cubing to determine ratios is probably a decent rule of thumb.