...Soaring with the Eagles!!!!
When I was flying sailplanes, I was ALWAYS very attentive to what was going on around me...especially when I was in the trainer. The cockpit was in the nose of the fuselage, and the big honking wing was on top, so you couldn't see behind you. There actually were mirrors, but I just didn't like them. The little HP sailplane had the cockpit on TOP of the fuselage, and the canopy was clear, so you could see ALL around you. I was in the trainer, and had found a good thermal, and got up to 8,000 feet. The thermal then wimped out, and I straightened out from circling, and looked around. I was watching for other aircraft, and also looking for hawks and eagles. They find thermals very easily, Scientists actually think that they may be able to sense or actually see them. Seeing birds like that circling means that they found one. Next time you see hawks or eagles circling, watch them...they are not flapping their wings...but they are staying up. They are in a thermal.
So, I spotted a pair, about 1,000 yards away, and flew towards them. I only lost about 500 feet of altitude, and entered the thermal. In a sailplane, you know when you enter a thermal, even without looking at the rate of climb meter. If a wing enters it, thermals are tight columns of rising air, it gets pushed up, and so you turn the plane on it's side, and turn towards the rising wing, and circle. If you blunder straight into a thermal, well, you butt tells you, you feel a HUGH push from below, and you can turn in either direction. If you turn away from the thermal, you immediately know, the air flows down around a thermal, you feel it and the rate of climb meter lets you know, so you haul on the rudder and the joystick and do a hard turn in the other direction, and usually you can find the thermal.
Anyway, I settled into a gentle circle, not banked too steep, and after a few turns, the eagles joined me. I guess they were curious, or wondering if they could get to the 'snack' inside the big white bird. That was a wonderful moment...we circled for about five minutes...and they left. They were right beside my cockpit while we soared, I smiled and waved and spoke to them as we flew. Soaring was so much fun.
Later in life, I let a client talk me into letting him give me flying lessons in return for my legal services. That didn't last too long...quite frankly...I did NOT enjoy flying a little single prop plane. It was noisy, and you had to wear a set of headphones and hear chatter, and you just flew straight. I got scolded a lot when I first started doing turns, I did a turn like I was in a sailplane and turned the plane on it's side, pointing the wing at the ground as I pressed on the rudder. My Instructor SHOUTED...
...HANDS OFF!!!!...
And so I let go, and pulled my feet off the rudders. He straightened the plane out and asked me..."What the HELL were you doing?" I was nervous, and I said, "Turning the plane". He calmed down, and said, "We are not in a dogfight, this is how you turn", and did a very gentle turn, the wings were almost level. I said, "OK", and after that flew that way. But, as I said, it was boring, so I told him that I did not want to get a flying license.
Good thing that I never became a Commercial Pilot...flying a Boing 747 like a Schroeder 1-26 would have gotten me thrown in jail...
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Plus, it didn't sound all that good. But, my teacher kept pestering me to look at it, and I did borrow it for an hour to play with a Quartet. I heard that YANOS STARKER had tried out the cello, and liked it, and said that he would tell his students to buy her cellos.
) He then walked off...
He 'PULLED RANK ' on me, and took the music with him and wrote in more correct fingerings. I pretended to have trouble with how he had fingered it, and he just growled..."You need a two hour lesson on this work, and I will charge my higher rates."