This paper presents both experimental and computational study of insect flapping kinematics at low Reynolds number. The paper is broadly divided into three sections. In the first section of the paper, experimental results conducted of a single flapping wing in an oil tank are presented. The wing is then simulated using the OVERTURNS computational platform (3D unsteady Navier-Stokes solver) keeping the Reynolds number and the wing kinematics the same. Good agreement was observed between the experiments and numerical simulation in terms of magnitude and trend of the unsteady lift and drag forces over the flapping cycle. The second section of this paper investigates the effect of insect body shape and angle of incidence on the aerodynamic forces in forward flight. The insect body shape was compared with both a sphere and ellipsoid, and it was shown that an ellipsoid shape provides a reasonable approximation for the insect body as compared to a sphere, and the analytical correlation of drag and lift as a function of body angle of incidence and Reynolds number can be used in a quasi-steady evaluation of the forces. In the third section, the kinematic variables are obtained in trimmed hover and steady forward flight at different body angles of incidence. A loose coupling procedure was developed where the quasi-steady model based on reduced-order aerodynamics is coupled to the OVERTURNS CFD solver to achieve insect body trim in practical computational times. The trimmed kinematics variables are the stroke amplitude φmax, stroke flapping bias φoff and the stroke plane angle β. It was observed that the wing kinematic variables are strongly dependent on the body angle of incidence (especially the flapping offset angle), and is a key feature in optimizing the flapping based MAV design. © Copyright 2016 by the American Helicopter Society International, Inc. All rights reserved.