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16
June 2004
There
have been some recent developments in
the way Tinkerbell landed on me in her recalls. I was surprised the first time she did that about a couple of
weeks ago. I thought it to be a nice
one-off event. But in the last few
outings to the nearby school, she repeated it
fairly regularly. Unfortunately,
Joy is not back yet and it is kind of difficult for me to try to shoot that
landing on me.
Tinkerbell
lands on my shoulder during outdoor recalls.
At
the beginning, it was just a direct landing.
If the recall distance is short, within 15 meters or so, her landings on
me will be directly on my shoulder whether she takes the low level approach or
the high level approach to me. In
addition, she may do a U turn in the air so she lands on my shoulder facing
the direction she came from. You folks have seen this in one of the
sequential shots in the Kenting outing.
(the sequence starting with
http://community.webshots.com/photo/147375155/147382633IKNAla
)
That
particular sequence was interesting for me as I watched her coming to me. It was very windy and the eddy and
crosswinds blew her about. As I watched
her, she constantly drifting from right to left to right as she adjusted for
those cross winds.
If
the winds are very strong , she would come in on a slam landing on my body.
In
the school recently, during her recalls to me from 30+ meters, and in less
windy conditions, this is what she does.
At
about 5 meters away, she rises up to about 4 meters, or about 8 feet above my
head. The first time she did this, I was on the verge of panic as I thought
that to be a precursor to her continuation to a high ledge to have me begging
on the ground for her to land on me. I
was glad I did not haul in the line.
She continued to bank above me and did a small circle of about 10 feet in diameter with me as the center
below. My shock turned into awe as I
watched her glide that circle turning into a ever lower spiral down on me. She would then stop that spiraling turning
that into a hover about 3 feet above my shoulder and dropped gently down on me.
She
does not do this consistently. Perhaps
she may be bored by a normal recall and she introduced this variation for her
own amusement, or to maintain a state of suspense with me with me agonizing
away. Harness flying is not for the
faint hearted. She did this in about 1
in 5 recalls. Hopefully when Joy gets back on 24 June, we can capture this
sequence for your folks.
In
that state of suspense when I do not know if she is coming or going, I have not
even given it a name to try to fix it for her like in the way I tried to fix
‘fly fly fly’ into her flyabouts in the apartment. I like to fix this landing into a cue-able response, not as if I
got any clue as to how to go about it.
She
got her absolute jackpots every time
she did this circling spiral down on me.
Perhaps one day, she may combine this with the gyro-drop
(http://www.geocities.com/shanlung9/w6gyrodrop.htm )
I
just never can get bored with my Tinkerbell.
=====With warmest regards ShanlungJoy - wife, Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter
earlier emails and photo links on Tink -