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