Posted on 07/31/2021 7:35:23 AM PDT by fireman15
Vulture hitches a ride on a selfie stick as paragliders soar high above the mountains. Along with several other entertaining videos.
When I eventually landed I was chastised by my cohorts. They said that I shouldn't have been flying by where the eagle's nest was at. The day before one of them had landed on top of someone's wing and started ripping holes in it.
Amazing stuff!
NICE! Seeing the birds land on the runway reminds me of Pterodactyl Airlines.
Those birds look tired.
Another time I was flying our airplane in the San Juan Islands and I saw an eagle. No one else in the plane saw it, so I did a 180 so the other’s could hopefully get a look. We were looking all around and no one saw a thing until all of a sudden we missed plowing into the majestic bird by just a few feet. At least that time the person sitting in my copilot seat saw the bird whiz by the windshield. The two in the back seat wanted me to try again but one near miss was my limit for the day.
They just flew in from Los Angeles and boy, are their arms tired! 😩
😁
It is amazing to me that migrating birds somehow have the energy reserves to fly thousands of miles... not to mention their ability to navigate through often challenging conditions.
Thanks for posting. This is a great story. I love the first two comments on the site:
• “The vulture is just checking out his food before they crash. (Only joking!)”
• “My favorite bird. They do the hard work of picking up all the dead liberals off the road.”
I was attacked, or rather my hang glider, by either a hawk or eagle. I heard something hitting the left leading edge and noticed the hawk attacking then circling back to attack again. This happened four or five times. I did not see any damage to the glider when I landed.
Thermalling with birds was one of the great joys of flying, they were also good markers for thermals.
We are spoiled around here (Western Washington) because we have some very good sites that have ample ridge lift most of the time. The guy we sold our little travel trailer to years ago held some sort of unofficial distance record in our state at that time. He launched just South of the Canadian border in Western Washington and flew all day until he ended up somewhere near Oregon.
I had heard about his adventure through the grape vine and assumed that on this side of the mountains that he had used mostly ridge lift, especially considering the distance covered. But he said that large portions of his journey were in thermals. It wasn’t a planned excursion... he just got very lucky that day. Fortunately he, his wife and his friends had good radio equipment.
He had knowingly violated class B, C, and D airspace along his route which is why what would have been a record flight will always be anonymous outside of hang gliding circles.
It would be hard to respect controlled airspace when you are having the flight of your life, as apparently he was.
Vultures hitching a ride on a hang glider LOL. I guess they’re not so dumb, putting a claim their prey before the fact.
I doubt that the authorities were even aware that he was on the fringes of their airspace. He was not a licensed pilot at that time so he was not aware that he could have filled out a form for the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System and probably gotten off with a slap on the wrist or more likely just been lost in the shuffle. But he had heard some horror stories and did not want to call any attention to himself.
Smart man.
Thanks, but I was thinking of the huge bird where they strapped the cabin on his back. When he landed his feet squealed and bumped, just like tires on a jet plane.
Birds and airplanes are very dangerous at airports. I had one damn near come through my wind shield on my Cessna while taking off. Lots of blood and guts on the aircraft (The bird never made it through the prop in one piece) but I made it safely back to the airport.
There are times when they need some help along the way. IIRC, some of them either need an updraft to gain altitude or an island to take a break. If they take the wrong route, they don’t make it.
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