Mitchell Preston wrote:
It ends up being dear to hit a 'dear' in the long grass. He would have
been better off to have hit a bird - that way it would have been
'cheep'. Has anyone on the list ever hit any wildlife when outlanding?
I seem to remember a story in ye olde Australian Gliding years ago
about someone colliding with a 'roo when outlanding in the
Warrumbungles (NW NSW for our interstate members).
MP.
Mr Chairman,
Many years back one of our members managed to topple a sheep with the
wing of our Cirrus 75 during an outlanding. Some may argue that a
sheep is not "wildlife" within the meaning of the act, but I would plead
that while the sheep may not have been necessarily wild, it certainly
would have been a bit upset and possibly quite angry. Ditto for the
owner of the said unfortunate animal, and our man too, as he was also a
farmer and could well understand and share how disappointed everyone was
at how things had turned out.
There was a much earlier incident which came close to the gravity of
this event and could have been a total wipe-out. It happened before I
took up gliding, so I relate it as I was reliably informed; well it's as
reliable as any gliding story told at the bar after 10:45pm - and that's
sufficiently factual for most of us, is it not?
It seems that one of our (then) younger members decided to do his
circuit downwind leg low and fast for a change (code for a beatup). The
line of his chosen flight path over the adjacent paddock had a small
flock of sheep quietly grazing in just the right (or wrong) place. Now
most people probably don't know this, but when sheep are startled - as
they seem to have been by this feat of aviation initiative - they jump,
sometimes sideways but often upwards as well, and sometimes to a
surprising altitude. (It's possible that there are some kangaroo genes
in sheep, or perhaps it's a trait learned from association with our
national fauna emblem over the past two hundred years or so - I don't
know, and I digress anyway.......).
However reliable and sober (at the time) witnesses report that sheep
were seen jumping almost as high as the Ka6, so it must have been quite
a run. There were no collisions however and our man landed back on
the field full of exhilaration and to the admiration and awe of nearly
all present, only to be greeted by a rather sombre CFI who was extremely
interested in, but by no means appreciative of this particular example
of circuit planning. The pilot was reportedly put back on dual in the
Kookaburra for a few weeks until he solemnly swore on the GFA MOSP that
he would never do such a silly, irresponsible, (also exciting and
daring) thing ever again. (Personally I think what really annoyed the
CFI was that he was also given to doing the very same thing - but
usually only on the hangar flight - and this young upstart had stolen
his thunder for the day ......)
Be that as it may, some forty plus years on we now know how stupid this
really was. Really informed readers may know that when a sheep engages
in a sudden and involuntary response such as that reported above, they
sometimes ... well ...er... they.. .. they sometimes break wind - if I
may put it that way. Some speculate (and Mr Attenborough would, I
suggest, agree) that this adds usefully to the overall height of the
leap and that's why they do it, but I've never attached much weight to
that school of of thought. The real problem here is that we now know
that such gaseous byproducts contain substances (methane amongst other
nasty toxic stuff) which are extremely harmful to the atmosphere and
contribute significantly to global warming.
Is it possible that this one flight produced the trigger to set off the
chain of events causing the global warming trend which so pre-occupies
some people these days? Well I hope not, but consider the mess that
gliding would be in if it could be proved, and this was somehow leaked
to the media! We need all to be sworn to secrecy on this one; and
there's to be absolutely no beatups over sheep from here on in - OK?!
This sort of thing has got to stop.
Then there was the time that one of our blokes nearly landed the
Kingfisher on the club cat who was most diligently minding his own
business with his own somewhat different understanding and use - albeit
equally urgent - of the exact same aiming point as that selected by the
Kingfisher driver.
But that's another story altogether.
Regards,
Terry
:-P
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