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lurch

flying with birds

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Tuesday at about 1200 feet over skydive pepperell I looked down and found I was flying maybe 10 feet, 15 tops, directly above a hawk. I could have spit and hit it, it was so close. It didn't seem alarmed at my presence, just matched my course and speed and sat there, chilling, wiggling a wingtip a few times.... After like 20 seconds or so I broke formation with him to set up for final (can't get distracted, lot of canopies flying about) but wow was that a privilege...I was kinda wondering is this a rare thing? How many of you out there have found yourselves sharing a thermal with a bird? Christ he was so close I could have done CRW with him if he'd been so inclined, the distance from the bottom of my shoes to the bird was smaller than the distance from my head to my canopy....and he just hung there, absolute dead standstill relative to me till I peeled off to the right. I'll remember that beautiful moment forever I think, only in skydiving could this happen. Wow.
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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That's cool, I flew up to a hawk under canopy about a month ago. I put my end cell about 5 feet from it...although it scared the piss out of it. The hawk sort of spazed out, flipped over and dove away.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Have had the privilege once or twice in the past couple of years...the coolest thing was almost hitting a bald eagle in freefall. That was really bizarre and dangerous after I thought about it!:)



I nearly spit out my beer when I read that. I did my first jump a month ago with a group of buddies and one of them was my brother. He was worried that he'd hit a bird during the little bit of freefall and have it rip his man-junk off. I'm still not sure if it was a joke question of if he was really worried about his unit. Actually given that he's been trying to lengthen his man-junk via a "supllement" he bought off the internet he was probably worried about loosing his investment.

He proposed the question of hitting a bird while dropping to the instructor who pretty much stared back blankly wondering WTF is wrong with this guy. He said it had never happened, nor heard of it happening. I guess I can tell my bro that it is possible now.

To keep this somewhat on topic my old man used to run a buttload of miles on the roads day in and day out and had a few chances to run along side deer in the area. He has great memories about the times that it would happen and I'd imagine that FLYING with a bird is easily 100x better. Way cool.

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Yeppers, happened to me 2 summers ago. Where I jump, they kinda taught you to use the edges of the fields as your downwind, crosswind patterns. The way I figured it, the bet place to go hunting for mice n stuff would be along the fence lines where there's more shade and hiding spaces.and that's why the hawk was flying the pattern too...

Still it was a really cool thing to experience...
I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

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The thought of clipping along under canopy and having an awesome bird like that come up to me and match flight is just so cool.

I guess it would make me think more about skydiving and the beauty of flight.

Goes back to the "if you could have one ability what would it be?" question. Which I would take flying hands down.
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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Thats a great story!

We often thermal with birds in all the soaring sports and it is always a beatiful experience.

Here is a picture I took thermalling with 30 - 40 Cape Vultures on a paraglider. They are totally different creatures in the air, very graceful and efficient flyers.

Marcel

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Speaking of flying with birds...here is one of my favorite skydiving stories: :)
ltdiver

Quote



I was tracking off from a 20 way years ago over Z-Hills and
I was fairly in the clear from the get go. Most folks headed in another
direction and the few around me were well clear. We had broken fairly
high for reasons which time has erased and I took the opportunity to
track extra long. I looked down, as I am want to do, to see exactly
where I am tracking to and I saw a bird below me and a tad ahead of
me. It seemed to be following the small ditch with a fair amount of
water in it that happens by Pheonix.

I began following the same ditch and therefor the bird as well.
There was a sort of odd visual here. Me and the bird just out for a
little flight on the warm breezes of Florida, lazyily following a
small stream. He was gliding, no flapping, and I was too. I was
overtaking him obviously but I could still look between my feet
and see him, now following me. I covered quite a distance, me
and my bird buddy, just following that little body of water,
the breezes, and the sun, and the grass waiving up at both of us.
I could see the folks packing on the ground. Could they seem us?
Could they see me and my bird buddy out for a little afternoon
cruise? If I did a barrel roll I wonder if the bird would follow
suit. Could he?

It was a nice little moment. Unfortunately, it was more
than a moment. Somewhere in the midst of this little wandering
and cross species conciousness, that little voice in the back of
my head, the one that always kind of cares for you when you most
need it, the one that's all head and no heart, the one that has
a both good yet irritating way of cutting through the fluff and
getting to the heart of things, that voice came forth with a
vengance and said;

"Hey asshole, the birds flying... YOUR NOT! Open the damn chute."

Oh, yeah, I forgot. But I sure felt like I was, for a moment
anyway. And it's true, skydivers DO know why the birds sing. But
on this day, I bet I taught one to laugh too. Why else would he
have come back to circle over me while I packed, other than to rub
it in?


Kevin O'Connell



Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

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Yeah, birds are fairly cool, but I've never met one that could sitfly worth a damn.



I guess you've never heard about Frightful the Freeflying Falcon.

Admittedly, mostly a head down flyer though.



A friend of mine told me about a documentary he saw on National Geographic about a skydiver and a falcon in freefall (like the linked picture). Does anyone know if there are some clips of that video available on ther net? I would love to see it.

Gr
Jetze

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Followed a red tailed hawk for about 20 seconds under canopy one time. Usually birds will fly away from you if they see you but this one didn't. Speaking of birds, I've been wondering lately that if there had never been birds in the history of the world or any other flying animal, would humans have ever come up with the concept of flght??
The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

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>I've been wondering lately that if there had never been birds in the
> history of the world or any other flying animal, would humans have
> ever come up with the concept of flght??

I think we would still have come up with balloons and parachutes; balloons are nothing like flying animals and parachutes were first designed for safe descents from burning balloons. From there we would have figured out flight eventually.

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we would still have experienced things like lift, ride a motorcycle/boat/bike whatever off a berm/wave/whatever and you'll "fly" or be momentarily lifted. I think that would of probably led to longer flight for ambitious types (remember the wright brothers owned a bike shop and were avid bike riders before their experimentations with flight).

---------------------------------------------
let my inspiration flow,
in token rhyme suggesting rhythm...

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Last Friday, I was flying a tandem about 1500 feet above Pitt Meadows Airport when I saw a white tail below me. The white tail was connected to a bald eagle that was thermalling over the middle of the airport. As we descended, I pulled into a right turn behind the eagle and followed him/her for two full rotations. When he got level with him, he glanced over and pulled a hard left turn that we could not follow with our huge parachute.
This is the first time I have flow with a bird in 26 years of skydiving!
Wow!
The student had no idea of how rare that is!

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