Excellent stuff, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I just read this, taken from the 'Learning to fly' guide given free with Pilot magazine a few years ago. Bob Rodwell wrote this............
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They were about a mile away, crossing the beach and lower than my 2,800ft in weak ridge lift when i spotted them. Thirteen whooper swans in V formation, making their Ulster landfall after staging through Islay on passage from Arctic breeding grounds to their winter roost around Loch Foyle.
I turned away from the ridge, swapped height for speed and swept out across the Magilligan peninsula to intercept. Using nouse garnered from otherwise forgotten Biggles books, I approached them from behind, reducing my speed, airbrakeing a smidgen and slipping into the missing port wingswans slot.
Each bird was eyeballing its neighbour to keep station. So they didn't even notice me, even the one which i was formating, only a few feet in front of the right side of the gliders nose. For several minutes we all flew south in close formation, the Ka-6 mushy and close to stalling.
Then there were several signs of unrest among the seven flying on the leaders starboard side. I'd been seen , so i broke left, back towards the ridge while the whoopers continued south towards their winter haunts.
It was only one of several marvellous encounters in over thirty years of gliding, including a herring gull disgusted at my failing to recognise sink and showing it with a mocking squawk and a dose of fresh guano over the canopy, a buzzard formating on my port wingtip above a lancastrian fell, nine thermaling storks marking much needed lift for me in Hungary as i was loosing out on making it back to base, and two encounters with wedge-tailed eagles on a single cross-country from Benalla in Victoria.
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Now, i know i will never see anything like this in my spell at gliding, i am not that taken in, i just thought it was a nice story.
Many thanks once again for taking the time out to write here, its nice to see. I can't wait to go up, really looking forward to it now.
P.S.
AerBabe Whats this all about pulling yellow knobs?
