snowboyd

How bout a thread for people to share the Buzz they're getting.

Here's my story. A self taught pilot who bought a 4 ch Electric Piper Cub so that I get a 4ch Electric Glider so I could learn to slope.

Well heres the Buzz, been going off the beaten track to find slopes. After finding many deadends, I finally managed to find a jungle track to take me around a village to a hill about 500 m from the coast.

Climbing onto the top - dripping sweat; I am surprised by the view of the grass slope out to the coast and a stronger breeze than what I had expected. The wind was what I guessed to be perfect - let's try my first non-motor assisted launch...

Threw the glider out and felt tranquility as I realised no motor would be needed, I did in fact have the perfect wind!! (I now know 12-17 km/hr is fine) Then the buzz of exploring how far away I could go and still find lift. What a peaceful and inspiring feeling piloting a slope model is.

Then the REAL BUZZ - a local hawk coming over and investigating my model and flying together. After several minutes a mock attack by the hawk... I power up get above him or her...power off and dive down near the hawk...Then just a few more minutes of flying around together before the hawk loses interest.

So thats my buzz. And now I'm thinking that the next glider I get better be able to perform as well as that hawk....

Snowboyd

MustangAce

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Nice! Thanks for sharing.

slopemeno

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One of the most satisfying experiences in sloping is dicovering that NEW slope.

snowboyd

Hey guys I was hoping people would share,

Back at the same site today and my friend the kite came to visit again. We played around for about 30 minutes - I really wonder if the bird just does it out of curiousity or because it likes to play.

What I did notice, is when they see the glider in lift birds will come and get a piece of it. At one point I got some strong lift and a kite that had been ignoring the glider immediately made a beeline for it.



Regarxds,
SB

dld

SB,

Hawks are very teritorial, and he's attempting to scare your plane away. When it doesn't work, after a few attepmts he will leave. If you want to have some real fun, try to sucker him into following your plane through a few turns. If he does, drop the nose into a shallow dive, if he follows, pull full up and do a loop. He can't, and the Hawks reaction can be quite comical.
If you have vultures in your area, they are not teritorial, and I have flown with upwards of a dozen at a time, and even had mild collisions with them. They do not seem to be spooked at all by a glider's presence. I have enjoyed many hours of flying with Hawks and Vultures, it is very enjoyable.
I share your enthusiasm for exploring how far out you can go and still find lift. We have a slope not far from here that you can drive to top of(very convenient) and you fly out over a lake. When the wind is right, the distance out over the water you can fly and still get back is almost unbelieveable. It really is as you say, "a buzz".

Happy soaring,

David Layne

papermache

My Feedback: (35)

snowboyd,
Flying with the birds is great fun. At the Indiana Dunes we fly with gulls and vultures all the time. Sometimes the gulls will get into formation and follow a sailplane. It's a neat sight. I've got several stories concerning birds that I love to share with people.
I wish they'd had readily available slope gliders in Hong Kong when I lived there (40 years ago). There are some great slopes out there. Good luck finding them all.

papermache

BMatthews

Actually they CAN loop. They just don't get much practice and it's odd to them.

Some years back there was an article in Model Builder about someone slope soaring when a hawk came over and started stooping (attack passing) the sloper. He did his darndest to get away including a bunch of manuevers. In one case the model did a 1/2roll and looped back. The hawk paused for a moment and then did the same thing. After a while the hawk lost instrest and left.

At my own power flying field one day I was watching a hawk thermalling for altitude (once a thermal flyer always a thermal flyer I guess ). Suddenly he dove aggresively and I thought he was either heading out or going after dinner. I was totally shocked when he nosed up to vertical in what looked like an attempted loop. He got up close to inverted and fell out of it with a huge raucous CAW. Now this REALLY got my attention and I called to a few others that were there. We all watched while it thermaled back up to height and did a second try. This time the dive was more than just a high speed cruise and when he nosed up there was enough speed to loop right over. But I guess it was too much work for his wings or something as he thermaled back up and left the area with a few lighter calls almost like he was saying "Nah-nah, I can do it too you turkeys!".

So while it's not common don't let anyone tell you that a hawk can't to stunts.

Sparrows and other small birds just flit about and bounce off the air. I've seen them do flicks and half loops and half rolls of all sorts.

slopemeno

My Feedback: (2)

We have some local crows at our slope that stop by for a snack every once and a while. If they see you rolling along the lip of the slope they'll fly by and try it, but they seem afraid to roll all the way over, so they half-roll to inverted, pause, and roll back. You'll usually hear a little "haa" as they do it.

Turkey Vultures are another story. The see us flying combat and they get sort of, agitated, for the lack of a better word, and want to fly in the same air we're flying in. My friend Joe and I were flying at the coast in Marin once and standing about 20' apart and a Turkey Vuture swooped in out of nowhere and flew right between us at shoulder level.

snowboyd

Great to hear some good stories!!

It will be interesting to see if the kites will try looping next time we play follow the leader !!

da Rock

I read somewhere that birds have no reason to do some aerobatic maneuvers so we won't see them do all our "airplane" maneuvers. And have not been observed doing them. It was an interesting article. I read it years ago when I used to do a fair amount of crow hunting. If you ever want to see what aerobatics are possible from a bird, go crow hunting. BTW, the article I read also said that only the hummingbird hovers and birds won't fly backwards, and both those are wrong.

It sorta makes sense that there would be little or no value to a bird to do an axial roll or even a barrel roll. And personally, I've never seen one do those two. And never seen any bird do a loop and can't think why one would want to do a loop. And I've seen more than one bird fly backwards, but not loop.

We used to have crows hang out at our slopes every once in awhile, and they'd do some stuff, but it was mostly when they were pestering each other. And it seems to me that whenever they needed to loop, they'd just fold one wing and flip laterally. I'd guess that since birds can fold their wings, or just fold one, they'd not really ever have a need or desire to loop with rigid wings. Unless of course, they saw a model airplane loop, and decided to show the model's pilot how to do a better one.