What is the mass of a pigeon tail feather? There is question at Space.SE If I drop a feather from orbit, would it burn up or “hit” the ground? there is an attempt to answer the question, but the mass of pigeon tail feather and possibly the drag coefficient is required to complete the answer. I have looked around on the web and if there is an answer it is not jumping out at me. What is the mass & drag coefficient of a pigeon tail feather?

I just weighed a pigeon tail feather (~10 cm) long. The mass was 0.05 g. Although all tail feathers are not equal in length (and all pigeons are not equal in size), this is probably a good approximation.

Measuring the drag coefficient is going to be very challenging, because it will vary with the orientation of the oncoming airflow. A feather falling with its broad surface (in this feather ~1.2 cm in chord width) perpendicular to the flow will have a much high drag coefficient than a feather falling with the broad surface parallel to flow.