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The report which was precursor of this is " Back to school" | |||||||||||||
From: shan lung <shanlung9@y...>
Date: Tue Apr 27, 2004 3:22 pm Subject: The gyro drop Those folks who inadvertently let their fids fly away would have found that flying down is very difficult or almost impossible for fids with little flying experience. Sad to say, but those untrained fids fly upwards or towards another tree. Even though they show signs of wanting to fly down, they just cannot do it at the beginning. If the fid flies down, he/she will do it at a dive making a hard hard landing. They only know how to bleed speed for more gentle dive at later stages. Recently , I wrote that Tinkerbell showed me a new variation of flight. After she brooded enough at a 5th floor balcony and extracted her pound of flesh from me, she dropped down almost vertically (as I was directly below her pleading for her to come down) on me. She extended her wings, beating them not quite as in hovering, but with flight feathers clearly separated from each other and dropping gently on me. I called it the feathered stone that last time. For want of a better term, I call this the gyro drop, so do correct me if other more established and appropriate terms exist. She did that again in two other occasions, the almost vertical descent. The last was about a week ago and one I felt a bit abashed at telling you. While I try my best to walk the walk, I do have my occasional stumbles now and then. From a 40 meter recall that I felt she did not respond quickly enough, I tugged at her line that she took strong exception to. She came, overflew me, went around a tree (luckily without entanglement) and landed on a high roof above me. She peered over the edge and looked over her beak down at me in between preening. I pleaded as usual while mentally kicking myself for doing what I told you all never to do. She made me sweat and grovel for 30 minutes. She then did another gyro drop to me. I was not directly under her but I reckoned her angle of drop must have been 80 degree, almost vertically down. All those times have beeen late in the day with fading light so my observations have not been very clear. Her final coming down gave me such great relief that my observations were not that focused either. Her wings were outstretched but not still as in gliding. For want of better words, almost a kind of quivering of her wings and with feathers opened out. The final landing on my shoulder was snow flake landing softness. I am calling on experienced similar sized , or any size fliers parront or companions like Chris, Bart and Frank if their fids done such “gyro drop?Any comments from anyone will be appreciated. I am thinking of ways, angle of shooting and the logistics to capture this on silicon. With warmest regards Shanlung Joy - wife, Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter From: shan lung <shanlung9@y...> Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 3:45 pm Subject: The gyro drop -continued I am following up on this today instead of yesterday. This is one of the rare times that I cannot blame it on procrastination as I was very keen to continue on the replies I received on this topic of great interest to me. Just before I started to write yesterday, an email from my wife popped in with an enigmatic “Remember, I have pictures? I could not recall her taking photos. But then, I was more engrossed with Tink up there than a wife dogging my heels pointing a camera upwards. I had to wait till I got home to see those pictures. I did not expect much as the light was fading but if she captured Tink gyro dropping down on me, what am I to say. After all, against expectations, her camera did capture the moment when the brat ran through us and jerked Tink off in that Rhino Beetle farm episode. Sad to say, it was not so. Joy did manage to get some humiliating photos of Tink high up on that roof peering at me and me down below begging Tink to forgive me and come down. I probably will not show those pics on grounds that the lighting wasn’t up to standard. As expected, comments all came from Free Flighters. I thank Bart, Rex and Frank for their observations. Frank G Robertson of Manhattan said his Ecky Armand flies indoor and a few times in big covered area. He did not observe this gyro drop which is an indication of his good senses not to do what I have done. I guess he never had to grovel to his Armand directly below to get this drop. Bart Van Hoyweghen free flies Wacko and Luna, his two very capable flying Greys, around his home in Belgium. He witnessed the gyro drop on two occasions. I normally try to describe clearly what I seen but failed to give complete description that Bart added. In the gyro drop, I did say Tinkerbell’s wings were outstretched. In addition, the wings were pointing upwards and backwards. This is the most important characteristic of that gyro drop that I failed to add that Bart pointed out. Our incredibly knowledgable Rex and breeder(who kick started me off on omega-3s) weighed in that the feathers opening up during the gyro drop must be due to aerodynamics. He then went on that efficient flight will be a dive to low level and then up again bleeding speed to land on shoulders. I whole heartedly agree with him and it would have been great if he could lecture to Tinkerbell on that. But I like to point out birds fly also for the love of flying. Some of the flights of Tink in the apartment were corny and most inefficient. Tink had flown many 1 and a fraction circuit of the room. Instead of flying from A to B, Tink did a whole circuit of the room and carried on a little more to land at B, normally with a flypass of me lightly brushing me with her wings. Tink also played at Pong where she uses her body to ‘bounce?off the walls at speed before landing. That scared me crazy with fear she break her neck until I steeled myself to ignore her showing off. Her idea of A to B flight means she can do anything in between, the more it scared me, the more amusing for her. In short, our fids are living sentient creatures with a perverse sense of humour and do their own weird thing. If they are on long migration flights, then efficiency will be a life and death detail, but otherwise, no. In normal flights, she either dive down near the ground, or stay near the ground before flying up to bleed speed to my shoulder as can be seen in the shots of LanTang along the path amonge the bamboo clumps. Where the ground is rocky or the starting point cannot be dived from as in JiangHu among the rocks, she powered her way directly to my shoulder. Tink also sometimes when nearing me, would lift herself up and do an aerial pirouette to land facing where she came from. In thinking back, I believe this was where Tinkerbell adapted that gyro drop technique from. Being the object of her landing, I could only see that from the corner of my eye. Maybe she was a showoff rising higher than necessary. She then did a short controlled drop on my shoulder. Tink was smart enough to extrapolate that short pirouette drop into that gyro drop from 5 storey. After my ill advised actions caused Tink to be irritated and flying up high, my conscience was too guilt stricken to stay where I was to recall her. I had to go nearer to her hoping my proximity may help to allevate my guilt not realizing that by shortening that horizontal distance, Tink only efficient way to get to me was to drop literally down to me, via that gyro drop. To take photos of that gyro drop, I need to stay deliberately below with Tink high high up without my upsetting her to get her flying up there in the first place. Joy will need to comfort Tink in that position until I get myself into position below. Then I hope she would do that drop on me. I don’t know if the camera angle will be adequate from high level and I guess I got to rope in another cameramen. I guess asking any of you to volunteer to come over to Taiwan will be an exercise in futility. The school floors from 2nd to top are sealed off with gates girding the stairs landing by the time I get there. There may be other places that allow access to high floor and tolerate a flying grey. But more time may be required to get there unlike the school which is just a short walk away. And I believe that I needed a few attempts prior to attempting any camera shot of that. I need to check around and keep you all posted. But note this is nearing the start of the next month where I go into my usual lurkdom again. ===== With warmest regards From: shan lung <shanlung9@y...> Date: Sun May 2, 2004 10:52 am Subject: Gyro drop and Matrix movie My wife kept telling me that if I mention mention that movie Matrix to you folks, and if you have seen that movie, you will know how that gyro drop was made by Tinkerbell. Since I have not seen that movie, I cannot say I understand what Joy is talking about. That is nothing new as most of the time I find her imcomprehensible to me. She told me there was this scene of this woman in slow motion suspended in a fetal position in mid air about to kick some badass in the face. So folks, I hope that is more intelligible to you. It sure as hell is most un-intelligible to me. Maybe I need to get that DVD to know what Joy is talking about. But I think I just like to go to enjoy the rest of my SUnday outside with Tink. Have a nice weekend ===== With warmest regards Shanlung Joy - wife, Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter ? Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 01:57:36 -0700 (PDT) ? From: shan lung <shanlung9@yahoo.com> Subject: Some observations of high level retrieval This may be of interest to fid fliers trying to retrieve fids from high level.? If your fids have clipped wings and not a consistent flier but found themselves in high places, this email is not applicable to you.?Flying down is difficult enough for fully feathered birds.?And if your fid has not flown but found themselves accidently lofted up high, they are terrified and not likely to come down to your recalls.? As you all know, I have been trying to induce Tinkerbell to do under controlled conditions the gyro drop, an almost vertical flight down, as described by my wife, like that of the Matrix movie where the girl in a fetal like position, just floated down. To do that, I placed Tinkerbell at higher level in the school and tried to call her directly down to me.?She was very reluctant to do so.?She did come down, but I had a scare she was punishing me by flying off before she turned in a big spiral down to me. I brought her to yet another place, some cultural complex in Chiayi , to try that again.?This place was chosen as there was this open top staircase on the outside of the building about 40++ feet high. This staircase had a mid landing before it doubled upwards to the top. Prior to that, I was taking Tink through standard 20-30 meters recall on level ground that she performed without any fuss. Then I took Tink up to the top of the staircase and placed her on the guard rail.?I went down to the ground directly below and tried the recall.?Perhaps it was a new place to her, but after 15 minutes, she did not budge at all. I then went up thinking to retrieve her by hand. (no way will I use the harness line to pull her down to me) When I reached the first landing and about 45 degree inclination from her, she took off and flew and glide down to me.?That was very pleasing so I took her up again to try to get her to do a gyro drop directly downwards to me. Again, she did not budge regardless of the sweet words I flattered her with.? I then moved myself away from the position directly underneath her to be where she was about 45 degree upwards from me.?When called, she came in a glide to me.?It was quite against intuition and common sense. By then, it was too late and not enough light to try again. The main point is that when our fids fly up a tree or up the rafter and we want to get them down, we stood directly below thinking that it is easier for them as we are nearer.? If we can get a T up to them to step on, maybe that is fine.?But if we want to coax them down, I feel being directly under them actually may make it harder for them to get to us. Perhaps being nearer and directly under, we can grovel better to them. But if we want to make it easier for them to get to us, it may be better to stay further away so the angle for them should not be greater than 45 degree to induce them to glide down to us instead. ===== With warmest regards Shanlung Joy - wife,? Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter ?Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 18:21:43 -0700 (PDT) ? From: shan lung <shanlung9@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Some observations of high level retrieval --- In Freeflight@yahoogroups.com, "Bart Van Hoyweghen" <Bart.Van.Hoyweghen@v...> wrote: > Common sense??I guess it depends which point of view you take into > account.?For the bird, a gyro drop requirs a lot of power and energy. > Birds (like humans) are lazy.?So I guess for Tinkerbell it all made > sense... > > Bart > > >>> shanlung9@y... 12/05/2004 10:57:36 >>> > I then moved myself away from the position directly > underneath her to be where she was about 45 degree > upwards from me.?When called, she came in a glide to > me.?It was quite against intuition and common sense. > By then, it was too late and not enough light to try > again. Bart, Seldom do we see it from their viewpoint. I have stood directly below Tink in my moments of panic to beg and coax her to come down.?Not that is was that bad as otherwise, she would not have done and I would not have known of her capability to do that vertical drop on me. So when I read about fliers in warehouses and their attempts to retrieve their fids, I bet their human instincts position themselves directly under their fid while wondering why their fids are reluctant to get to them. Tink must have been fed-up with me for being in such an akward position for her to get to.?If the light was not failing, she may just have stayed there way up high. Now, there was an interesting occurence last night when I took Tink to join us for a dinner at one of my favourite sushi restaurant.?The best sushi I ever had in the whole world (and that include Japan) is prepared by the owner/chef of that hole-in-the-wall-restaurant. Tink kept flying to my shoulder and I got tired of her claws digging into me and her periodic widening of the hole she induced in my snake T shirt. There was this long horizontal bamboo pole about 8 feet high set back a couple of feet behind me. I tip toed to set her up there and was gratified that she remained there allowing me to enjoy food and conversations in some peace. I then called her to come down.?She looked at me a while before she crab walked along that pole AWAY from me. She then flew down. That was a 45 degree angle drop. She knew how to chose her angle too.?Thought this may tickle you. ===== With warmest regards Shanlung Joy - wife,? Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter ?#060;/span>Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 00:49:29 -0700 (PDT) ? From: shan lung <shanlung9@yahoo.com> Subject: OT Re: Some observations of high level retrieval - food fotos My wife wrote in with her URL to photos taken by her of the food there and invite you view them. The restaurant is a small dinky hole in the wall.?In her photos, it is called Wufeng road-xiaoshan. The salmon sushi is incredibly outstanding superb. Its so beautiful to look at and IT IS HEAVENLY in your mouth! See also how Tink nibbles on her toes when on the bike. --- J Tang <tangjoy@ms71.hinet.net> wrote: > Pictures of the restaurant and the food here: > http://public.fotki.com/Shimmertje/good_mood_food/page3.html > (snipped) > >Now, there was an interesting occurence last night > >when I took Tink to join us for a dinner at one of > my > >favourite sushi restaurant.?The best sushi I ever > had > >in the whole world (and that include Japan) is > >prepared by the owner/chef of that > >hole-in-the-wall-restaurant. ===== With warmest regards Shanlung Joy - wife,? Tinkerbell - CAG & surrogate daughter New letter and Photos of Gyrodrop read at http://www.livejournal.com/users/shanlung/18876.html |
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