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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