Dudley

Tnx for your suggested use of patience. I'll get my glass of Vodka
(Called a Booze Berry) and go sit and see if I can get one or more to
come to me. Right now am feeding them Sun Flower Seeds and Corn on the
Cob, both of which they love. May be able to take the ear of corn and
hold and see if I can get them to come to it )

One more story about Bob.

The Air Defense Command bought some F-86D All Wx Interceptors. They
had radar with the antenna on top of the nose intake. Armed with 24 2
3/4 inch FFAR (folding fin aireal rocket). Engine was J-47 with AB.

Compared to the original F-86, these birds were heavy and flew like a
truck even with AB. With the suffix "D" they were called "Dogs" and am
told they flew like one )

The pilots flying these All Weather Birds were having accidents in
them and were getting scared of them.

So, a Tech Rep (Bob Hoover) was sent up to WADF and Bob took a "Dog"
to show the WADF staff and Squadron Pilots what if really could do.

He fired up and taxied to end of R/W and ran up and plugged the burner
in. Let stabilize and released brakes and watching him I saw the slab
go full up. Bird only rolled a few hundred feet and with AB and full
up slab rotated and came off the ground riding on the AB flame (not
the wing) into a 45 degree nose up climb. He went to about 20 feet and
started a roll holding the nose in the same 45 degree attitude above
the horizon as when he broke ground. As he was finishing the roll he
dished out and bird came down still in a 45 degree nose high attitude
and wheels just missed hitting the runway about by about 12 inches. He
then did a lot of things with bird such as run down runway on one main
gear dragging the aileron. Did this on both gears so dinged both
ailerons. Forget now the rest of the things he did but after landing
the Air Defense Command would not loan him any other planes since he
bent that one by dragging both ailerons (intentionaly).

To say the least, the bitching about the bird stopped, even if it
didn't fly any better for the average jock.

I ended up stopping watching Bob fly as he was always so close to the
ragged edge. I just didn't want to watch him crash and die so I
stopped looking and he didn't )

Bob had the ability to feel just what his airplane was doing and how
much it had left and how much of the controls he could put in to keep
on the ragged edge.

I've seen Cole and other very good Acro pIlots but I give Bob my vote
as #1.

Big John
************************************************** ***

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 22:24:18 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Big John wrote:
Dudley

I have a flock (note OT word) of Squirrels that are part of the Zoo
(including lots of different birds) I feed on my patio. I put their
food out and ring their dinner bell and by the time I'm in the house
looking out window, there they all are stuffing themselves.

Since you trained your Squirrel to eat out of your hand, please pass
that training info along to us poor guys that also can't fly no more
)

New subject.

Have you read the small book by Cmdr Moore (Navy) called The Wrong
Stuff? If you haven't, when I get back from my plane wan-ta bees here,
could ship to you to read. Kind of interesting and know you would
enjoy if you haven't read.

Big John

************************************************** ***********

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 14:13:16 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Anyhow, just thinking about doing spins is giving me a headache these
days!


Bertie

Me as well. My flying days are behind me. I'm still quite active as a
consultant in the airshow safety community and that keeps me
busy....that and YARD WORK !!!!
:-)


Ugh. Yard work.

Bertie
Horrible stuff, yard work! And there are other things too that make
retirement a royal bitch. Take that damn squirrel of mine...yes I have a
pet squirrel :-)) Little bugger started coming up onto the back deck and
me like an idiot decided that he was so cute I should start training him
to eat out of my hand.
Out comes my wife and promptly tells me,
"Hon, PLEASE don't feed the squirrels. They'll end up coming around and
eating all my flowers".

"Hell" says me, why would they eat your flowers when I'm giving them all
this good stuff?"

"PLEASE", she says; don't do it! They'll eat the flowers".

Well, this morning guess what happened?

God, I wish I was flying again!!!!
:-)))



Hi John;

About feeding the squirrel; It took a great deal of patience and so far
only a few have responded. What I do is take a small piece of bread and
speak slowly and in a very gentle voice to the squirrel; sort of like
you would do with a cat. The objective is to be totally non threatening
so I hold out the bread in my fingers and I don't move either my hand or
my body at all.
I let the animal make it's own advance toward my hand as I speak to it
gently.
I find that the squirrel will respond VERY tentatively and cautiously.
It advances slowly and sometimes retreats back a bit then comes in closer.
Finally, it will come up to my extended hand and VERY gently...and I
mean GENTLY, take the bread from my fingers. There is absolutely no
tendency to bite and absolutely no aggression is present.
He used to take the bread and back up to the porch rail and eat it, but
I'm astounded that as he has gained confidence in my intention to do him
no harm, he has taken the bread and sat right there next to me eating it.
I understand that wild animals are unpredictable and can suddenly turn
on you, but for some reason I honestly believe that they can sense
kindness and non aggression and they respond in kind.
Sorry for the long story. Must be the old test pilot in me wanting to
get all the data points out ok :-)
Anyway, you get the picture. I wish you luck with your squirrel
"relationships"

I appreciate the offer of the book, but I find I don't read much for
pleasure any more as it's hard for me to focus properly on printed pages
for extended periods of time. It's the floaters in my left eye. They
drive me nuts trying to read.
I do manage the reports and official stuff that I absolutely have to
take care of, but even that is getting harder to do.
Hope the squirrel lesson gets you some results. :-))
D