AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014 - 18

PROFICIENT PILOT

Flying is for the birds

BY BARRY SCHIFF

VFR creatures that stay out of the clouds
"ONCE YOU HAVE TASTED flight, you will forever walk

BARRY SCHIFF

has been writing
about flying for
more than five
decades.

18 | AOPA PILOT February 2014

the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you
have been, and there you will always long to return."
Although this beautiful piece of prose is well
known to pilots, it could not have been meant for us.
When written by Leonardo da Vinci some 500 years
ago, there were no pilots. Perhaps the Italian master
of the Renaissance was imagining what flight would or
could be like. More likely, he was inspired by the flight
of birds (of which there are more than 10,000 species.)
When man (both genders) observed that birds
had wings, he was jealous and tried for centuries to
emulate them. He might have been most envious of
the peregrine falcon, speediest in the avian world.
Clocked in a 45-degree dive at 217 mph, it can outrun
most lightplanes operating at redline. Think of how
embarrassing it would be to be passed by a bird (or to
experience a bird strike from behind). Clocked at 106
mph, the spine-tailed swift is the fastest in level, wingflapping flight.
Can birds stall? Yes, they can and do, but only
during a wind shear encounter. Unlike their human
counterparts, though, they recover instinctively and
immediately. Although the vast majority of birds lift
off from a standstill, a few cannot. Like an airplane, a
buzzard, for example, requires a takeoff run.
The heaviest bird is the great bustard. It typically
grosses at 40 to 42 pounds, although one reportedly
got too heavy (46.3 pounds) and paid the ultimate
price. Someone in northeastern China shot the poor
bustard as it attempted to escape during an overweight
takeoff. Some pilots suffer equally fatal consequences
when operating at excessive weights.
The largest birds aren't bustards. The wandering
albatross has a wing span of up to 12 feet. An outstanding glider, it can remain aloft for hours without beating
its wings. and even sleeps while flying.
The smallest and lightest bird obviously is the
hummingbird, the grand champion of aerobatics. No
other bird can hover and fly backwards, sideways,
and-yes-even inverted for short periods. Like other
birds, these tiny, angelic creatures can withstand a
greater load factor than a human pilot because they
do not fly with their head above their hearts. A small
hummingbird weighs about the same as a penny. The
bee hummingbird is the lightest and weighs the same
as two paperclips (about 2 grams).

The world's avian altitude record apparently is
held by a Rüppell's vulture, but it did not survive to
brag about it. Nor was it squawking the appropriate transponder code when it collided with a Boeing
jetliner over the Ivory Coast at Flight Level 410. Barheaded geese routinely fly over the Himalayas and
Mt. Everest (29,000 feet) while migrating.
Wilbur Wright was first to report a bird strike, and
Cal Rodgers, first to fly across the United States, was
first to be killed by a bird when a seagull jammed the
controls of his biplane.
Lowering altitude somewhat, birds have been taking advantage of ground effect to reduce induced drag
long before man took to the sky. Sea ducks, pelicans,
sandpipers, and others routinely follow the contours
of waves and swells at a height less than their wingspans to improve performance.
According to the Audubon Society, birds are VFR
creatures and do not intentionally fly into clouds.
They have more common sense than some pilots
and ground themselves on foggy days. (Small birds
occasionally do get caught in IMC and fly into tall
buildings, as do some pilots.)
If birds really do attempt to avoid flying in cloud,
then one of the great mysteries of bird flight involves
the bar-tailed godwit, a long-range flier without
equal. This shorebird migrates diagonally across
the Pacific Ocean, all the way from Alaska to New
Zealand. It covers these 7,000 miles in four to six
days without stopping for rest or nutrition, a miracle unto itself. But flying this route inevitably must
require it to cross the intertropical convergence zone,
a band of thunderstorms encircling the Earth. What
do godwits do upon encountering a line of thunderstorms? There's no place out there to land, and a route
deviation increases the fatigue associated with such
a marathon flight. Do godwits and other birds fly
beneath thunderstorms? They obviously fly in rain,
but how do they cope with hail and microbursts?
Also, what happens when a bird flies through
freezing rain? Can it be taken down by structural
icing? No one seems to know.
We have been taught much by the flight of birds,
but there is much more to learn, which is why we continue to observe them with awe and envy.
AOPA
WEB

www.barryschiff.com

http://www.barryschiff.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014

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