Oh to swan around

[Papa Charlie]

When I took my dog for a walk first thing this morning alongside a river, I was fascinated to watch a swan and (her?) two sygnets doing what I can only describe as circuits along and around the river.

Almost military circuits with an oval base leg. They did about six or seven repeated circuits with what can only be described as a glide approach, a wet touch and go with quite a long downwind.

When I was learning to fly I wish I could have mastered flaring as well as these sygnets were after just a few circuits!

Fascinating and incredibly graceful !

:D

[Maxflyer]

I just saw a large flock of birds presumably starting their journey south for the winter....Fantastic formation flying.

[big.al]

No to mention an incredible ability to navigate, without GPS, VOR, charts, compass, ATC directions or even so much as the sun to get their bearings from (most of the time in the UK, anyway)....

[BRL]

But can they fly IFR.......?

[dublinpilot]

I fly rivers???

[Floppy Link]

Why is one leg of the "vee" invariably longer than the other in a formation of geese?

....because it has more geese in it!
;)

[FNG]

Bird flight is fascinating, but there seems to be surprisingly little written about it, at least outside specialist journals. Swans always seem to me to be slightly awkward flyers by bird standards. Certainly watching them land reminds me of watching light aircraft. You sometimes see them flare too high and stall down, whilst at other times they plough into the water too fast. Sometimes swans hurt themselves by mistaking wet roads for water surfaces. The most agile avian flyers seem to be gulls and hawks, which are at least semi-aerobatic.

There is speculation that some migratory bird species can fly in IMC, but I'm not sure that it has been figured out how they might do it.

[In Altissimus]

OK - I was going to make an obvious joke about "pulling geese" - but I won't;)

Seriously, I thought I was bonkers in the spring when I spent a bemused half hour watching flamingoes doing 'circuits' just like Papa Charlie described on some rocks off Key West. Without fail they would do a tidy low-level circuit, glide downwind, turn final, and do a powered approach.

Maybe I'm just a bit obsessed:ugh:

[FlyingForFun]

You only have to spend a few minutes watching birds flying around to realise that they are the true masters of the air, and we are all amateurs in comparison.

I remember hearing, quite some time ago, about some particular species of bird - I forget which - that regularly migrated along the east coast of England. At least, that always used to be the case until the M1 was built, after which it was noticed that these birds started to follow the M1 instead...

FFF
-------------

[knobbygb]

For gods sake don't let the CAA know about this! How will those poor signets feel after putting all that hard work into training, finally being cleared to fly by mother swan, only to find themsleves grounded for 2 months while waiting for the paperwork!

[DOC.400]

And it doesn't cost them £XXX per hour!!

Doesn't it p*ss you off!!

Great to watch though.............

DOC

[Taildragger55]

Normally when I watch swans landing it is with naked jealousy, since my own landings by aircraft or parachute tend to make scientists in faraway Japan squint at their seismographs and purse their lips.

However some time ago I watched a pair landing on a short stretch of canal. They came in fast, at full gross weight with no headwind, and there was a lot of flapping, waving of arses from side to side and frantic kicking of feet before they splashed down heavily.

Not wanting them to break my arms broken (as I believe is the practice) I could not actually laugh out loud but I did risk a quiet titter.

[Kolibear]

As a birdwatcher of some years I hope that I may be able t o post my observations.

Birds habitually land into wind, it helps to slow them. Small birds landing on a perch (as opposed to a surface), make their approach below the level of the perch, then swoop up to it, braking with their wings and spread tails. At the moment they come to a halt in the air, they reach down with their feet and grasp the perch. Easy , isn't it!

Birds such a duck and geese landing on water will arrest their rate of descent by vigorous flapping just above the ground and gently lower themselves onto the water, (or grass)

Swans, being that much heavier, use their webbed feet as skis. Having slowed themselves down by back-flapping, they plane along the water surface and as their speed falls off, subside gently into the water.

(FFF - for many years it was assumed that migrating birds follow the coast, but now it is known that there are several well-defined overland routes, The Wash to the Severn, the Clyde to the Forth and the Wash to the south Coast.

The best fliers are Skuas, the fast jet fighter of the bird world)

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Jet fighter of the bird world? How about Martins? They flash along at high mach numbers on relatively short stubby wings, rolling instantly from vertical bank one way to vertical the other. They really must pull some 'G'.

I love watching Swans and Geese land. They transition from cruise configuration (high speed, streamlined, necks out straight) to 'approach configuration' - pitched back, necks raised with head tilted down, and gear extended. Being large birds, it's imperative they land into wind for a fuss-free arrival. On a canal, chances are the landing will have to be out of wind, hence not so graceful. A bit like a taildragger being forced to use the duty runway instead of landing on the grass into wind.

SSD

[Mark139]

I wonder if birds ever watch humans walking, running or cycling and think 'How graceful, I'd like to be able to do that'?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I wonder if birds ever watch humans walking, running or cycling and think 'How graceful, I'd like to be able to do that'?

Well, they are not the brightest of creatures, for all their grace. Some of them have even given up the gift of flight.

I suspect they really don't know how lucky they are.

SSD

[BRL]

Do you reckon a bird can do a loop-the-loop......?

[Aerobatic Flyer]

Small birds landing on a perch (as opposed to a surface), make their approach below the level of the perch, then swoop up to it, braking with their wings and spread tails. At the moment they come to a halt in the air, they reach down with their feet and grasp the perch. Easy , isn't it!

It can be done in an aeroplane too. Or at least, it could be done by a chap called Henri Giraud (http://www.afpm.org/AFPMdiffusion-HG01.htm), who was the father of mountain flying in France. He used to say that in the mountains an aeroplane should be landed "like a bird landing on a wire".

People I know who flew with him tell incredible stories about landing in ridiculous places with virtually no ground roll. His crowning achievement was landing on the summit of Mont Blanc in a Super Cub, touching down 30m from the point he chose to stop.

However, it took him thousands of hours of practice to do it while most birds manage it just fine on their first solo. It's not fair!:{

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I've never seen one loop, but I recently watched a pair of Buzzards (over Barton, as I was preparing the Chippy for flight) do continuous half rolls - inverted, then erect - at times they appeared to be holding claws - the top bird erect and the bottom bird inverted, with much vocal activity. Some sort of pairing behavoir?

There's absolutely no reason a bird wouldn't be able to loop, especially the more agile ones like gulls and raptors. It's a positive 'G' manovre and very easy to do. I just don't think there's a reason why one ever would.

SSD