Tag Archives: flight

The Pirates of Palmiet

Hauling out the garbage early this morning a screeching drew my attention to the sky in the SE and there they were: Four pirates in jinking flight heading my way.

Luckily a Kite flying across their path drew their attention; they immediately launched an attack, buzzing him and strafing him and really getting ‘in his face.’ He dodged lazily but kept heading due east towards the rising sun. Four sorties they launched, wheeling round, gaining height, then flying straight at him again.

Aargh! Me hearties, I heard ’em shouting as he flocked off.

Then they broke off and laughingly resumed their journey NW, up the Palmiet valley. Where the Lodders lived, onder in die vallei. I would message Louis Pirates at ten o’ clock! and other important aviation code signals. Avast! and stuff. Heading back your way, scramble aloft! he would signal me in the evenings, as they returned to roost. I wonder who is controlling Palmiet air traffic now that we’ve both left the valley?

~~oo0oo~~

pics: nature picture library – wikipedia – thanks

Rose-ringed parakeets originally come from India and North Africa, but have spread and have now been recorded in over 35 new countries.Their spread has various adverse effects on the ecology, but its interactions with native biodiversity and environment are not completely known and rely mainly on anecdotal evidence. Future research is required to fill these gaps. Trunk cavities represent the preferred breeding sites of these alien parrots and indicate potential routes of competition with native hole-nesting bird species, such as nuthatches, starlings, woodpeckers, barbets, tree squirrels, bats, insects etc. Droppings by ring-necked parakeets may alter vegetation under the roost but direct cause–effect relationships for this phenomenon are hard to assess without more data. The ring-necked parakeet is a potential reservoir of diseases transmittable to humans and wildlife. No data concerning ecosystem recovery after the removal of ring-necked parakeets is available. Eradication and numerical control programs are often hampered by the emotional affiliation humans often have to these bright birds.

~~oo0oo~~

onder in die vallei – down in the murkier region of the valley

High as a Kite (if you want to . . )

Faster than Light (if you want to . . ) – Moody Blues “The Best Way To Travel”

I’ve always wanted to fly. Who hasn’t?

But I dislike noise, so while my first flight in a light aeroplane – with an Odendaal or a Wessels piloting it – was great, and my first flight across the Atlantic in a Boeing 707 at seventeen was unforgettable, it was a glider flight that first got me saying “Now THIS is flying!!”

We hopped into the sleek craft, me in front and my pilot Blom behind me. Someone attached the long cable to the nose and someone else revved the V8 engine far ahead of us at the end of the runway of the Harrismith aerodrome on top of 42nd Hill. The cable tensed and we started forward, ever-faster. Very soon we rose and climbed steeply. After quite a while Blom must have pulled something as the cable dropped away and we turned, free as a bird, towards the SW cliffs of Platberg.

Up One Man's Pass - Down ZigZag Pass

“OK, you take the stick now, watch the wool” – and I’m the pilot! The wool is a little strand taped to the top of the cockpit glass outside, and the trick is always to keep it straight. Even when you turn, you keep it flying straight back – or you’re slipping sideways. I watched it carefully as I turned. Dead straight. “Can you hear anything?” asks Blom from behind me. No, it’s so beautifully quiet, isn’t it great! I grin and gush. “That’s because you’re going too slowly. We’re about to stall, put the stick down,” he says mildly. Oh. I push the stick forward, and the wind noise increases to a whoosh. Beautiful. Soaring up close to those cliffs – so familiar from growing up below them and climbing the mountain, yet so different seeing them from a new angle.

Years later, I’m married and Aitch, having checked that my life insurance is up-to-date (kidding!) gives me a magic birthday present: A Hans Fokkens paragliding course in Bulwer KZN. We arrive on Friday night and check into an old house on the mountainside of the village.

Hans disagrees with Douglas Adams who said in Life, The Universe and Everything, There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Hans says you don’t throw yourself at anything with his wings, nor do you jump off the mountain. You FLY OFF THE MOUNTAIN! he tells me. He also explains how airflow works and how wings fly. Then he feeds us from a huge pot of stew and we sleep. Luckily, I had been through ground school before; years before, when Colonel Harold Dennis taught me how heavy things fly in Oklahoma, with longer explanations and diagrams and a much bigger boep.

The next morning we’re on the hillside getting air into the wing and learning to lift, turn, run and FLY! The first time you lift off you think No-o! Yesss!!

– me on the beginners slope –

I ask about a helmet, but Hans explains it’s not necessary when the brain involved is worth less than the price of one, so I wear my Berg River Canoe Marathon cap as a placebo. Soon I’m able to take off at will on the beginner slope and we move up the mountain. I love the fact that you pack your own wing in a backpack and carry it up the mountain yourself. My first flight was fantastic but short, basically straight down and a rough and tumble landing with the wind. I hadn’t noticed the wind sock right there, flapping, trying to tell me something.

My next flight is way better, way higher and way longer, as this time Hans attaches a walkie talkie to me and can tell me what to do. “Lean right! Hard right! More!” comes over the speaker and thus he keeps me in a thermal and I keep climbing. Fifteen minutes in the air, rising 100m above the take-off point! Now this, this really was flying! Even better than Blom’s beautiful fibreglass glider.

Aitch had gone off to read her book and chill, so no pics were taken of my soaring with the eagles and the lammergeiers and the little feathers you notice next to you in a thermal.

Wonderful, silent, wind-in-your-hair flight at last!

bulwer paraglide
– this pic is not me, but it was just like that! High above the take-off cliff –

After that amazing and unforgettable quarter of an hour, I descend slowly, and by watching the wind sock I can turn into the wind at the last moment and land like a butterfly with sore feet.

Beyond stunning!!

~~~oo0oo~~~

~~oo0oo~~

boep – paunch

Bliss

I heard a cry on high as I parked on the roof at work. Glancing up I saw two crows cartwheeling, freewheeling, locking claws and spiralling like a propellor high above me. What a magnificent display of flying excellence!
Buzzing around above and below them was a drongo, divebombing and harrassing them, cheeky little blighter. They ignored him and carried on exuberantly showing off. Wow!
Isn’t that amazing!? I said to my 74yr old carguard Bridget as she shuffled up asking “And now?“.
I pointed out the birds.
“Yes,” she says off-handedly, “Those two parents are teaching the young one to fly”.

It’s bliss, it is.
She has taught me about marine mammals too, young Bridget, my Scottish carguard: https://bewilderbeast.org/2018/10/15/bottleneck-bliss/.

The evening sky from my rooftop parking spot