Originally Posted by Admiral346
Do birds fly in clouds, IFR so to speak?
Does anybody on here have any zoological knowledge about this?
I immediately admit to no zoological knowledge on the subject whatsoever.
Originally Posted by SNS3Guppy
I've encountered birds in clouds. I don't believe I've ever had a bird strike while in a cloud, but I've seen them blow by the windscreen very quickly. I used to believe that they wouldn't be encountered in the soup....
If you saw them, it wasn't soup...
My, probably useless, thought would be that birds fly at the most at something like 30 to 50 kts. So, they would stay out of the 100% solid peasoup, and just fly through the gaps in the rest, a luxury we humans do not have at 300 to 500 kts TAS....
As to the I in IFR (like Instrument... gettit?) I would think that while gliding, with a decent amount of lateral stability, they can probably
feel they're level, they can certainly
feel their speed, and in most cases they can probably
see/perceive what's up and down. The anecdote about the WWII pigeons may well be accurate.
Brian,
Sorry, haven't explored your links yet, but will do.
CJ