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The motivation for the present investigation of damped motion through energy dissipation due to material properties and bifurcations is to better understand the fundamentals of flutter, with applications to elastic and viscoelastic composite flight and automotive vehicles. The traditional approach to determining flutter in a linear aeroelastic system, such as a wing, is to define flutter as the lowest velocity at which simple harmonic motion first occurs. This legacy definition is demonstrable using a Duncan-Ellis flutter engine that replicates the motions of a pitch-plunge wing. While simple harmonic motion is a useful rule of thumb definition, such a definition does not adequately and sufficiently describe the behavior of the wing before or after flutter. Further, the traditional definition could provide a misleading flutter velocity point.