For
this interview I needed my notebook
(which I forgot)
My digital camera (which had a pretty flat battery)
A big local event (Devon County Show)
And sun cream factor 50+
"Be Prepared" Boy Scouts
Flying with a real ace - by nightcat
background to the interview, "it happened quite by accident."
You see it was on a Saturday when my other half and I were at the County Show. This was a big event as she was showing some of her prize winning guinea-pigs. I never wanted to go because its the same old stuff, every year - just in different places! "boring beyond belief"
Of course she insisted that we would have a great time and this was going to be some of that quality time she promised (not the quality time I had hoped for)
Anyway no sooner had we arrived then she vanished into her secret world of guinea-pigs and friends, which is when I 'sneaked off back to the van...' (the secret institute for men)
The morning started out with me in the van blasting out some seriously loud music I put together the night before to a audience of raving seagulls. Was a seriously good session that lasted several hours. Come dinner time I figured I might use my free-pass and actually go inside the show - but no, I had several naps in stead.
I consumed quite a lot of food and drink from the hamper and had several texts to Grizzly to pass even more hours away (poor Grizz was trying to do afs2) followed by another nap.
So, come mid afternoon it was time to go see what was going on in the Devon county show and feel good in the fact of "at least I went inside and had a look around."
I'd like to point out that the military section for its mass of army and navy segments had no RAF or Aviation stalls this time - I was determined to fly in the simulators they usual have like funflak did to see if my joint-ops education does infact work in modern aircraft combat situations... again 'like funflak said' so gutted beyond belief.
Ok so I went around, small highlights included .. watching some really cute aussie ladies shear some sheep (already learnt my lesson there as some of you may know), some antique cars and bikes, watched the bulls being shown in hope they would act up and lots of other mildly entertaining things had I not been so bored.
So this is the part I accidentally ended up meeting some Aces of the Skies, I somehow ended up stumbling around the back of a tent in search of a loo and bumped into them..
I'd like to introduce Matilda, a Golden Eagle!
the ace I got to fly with !
The thing about Matilda is, she can reach speeds of over 340+ km/h (200mph+) easily and accelerate in a nano-second into it.
There was a video of a man falling out a aircraft (skydiver) pushing himself with all his knowledge and experience to fall as fast as possible with one of these Aces keeping up easily and zooming past as a piece of meat fell even faster from the skydivers hand!
I forget the owners names but I was privileged to put on the glove and experience one of lifes most amazing things. No sooner had I put on the heavy duty glove then I had this hunter / killer of the skies upon me, at one point she even flapped to get her balance and it felt like my whole arm was about to be removed from my body.
Was round about this time the owner held her and walked a fair old distance away and threw her into the air, Matilda knew the procedure and flew at me with claws extracted to land on my arm. Was about this time I think I experienced bowel movement and a religious experience in which I mistook her for God. Apparently a lot of people do! I have to admit she landed with a lot of grace and very lightly with all things considered.
This
is a picture of the owner and Matilda after her experience with a NightCat - as
you can see she didn't look to impressed unlike me who was in completely and
utterly awe struck.
Matilda can live up to 40 years of age in captivity.
Golden Eagles nests which can be found in trees cliffs and rocky ledges are called 'aeries'
Her Stats - 10 lbs and a wing span of 6 ft
Golden Eagles can kill anything from a small rabbit to a young fox / deer.
Was about 30 minutes after all of this the 2 owners put on a show with Matilda and the other birds of prey to an audience of a few hundred people. I've seen this kind of thing on TV but it never really appealed, its one of those things you have to experience and see yourself for real. It'll be a magical moment in your life I promise.
The show went into a lot of facts and amazing information, which I'll spare you but this Eagle will put any aircraft to shame.
She is a energy fighter, over-modeled and completely uber - she has more kills then any ace.
During the show she decided a crow flying near by was a interesting target, the crow with some pretty nifty escape and evasion tactics managed to evade the first attack and at which point Matilda got distracted by her owner whistling like mad to get her away and entertaining the crowds with her air mastery of snatching a piece of meat being span around lol I think the first part was more interesting but with the amount of young children present it might not of been so great to see.
Yep she done a lot of dives at super speeds, from a dot in the sky to something flying low and jinxing and turning at speeds no aircraft could ever do without breaking up into a million tiny pieces! At one point she dived down, was skimming inch's over my head, then done a 180 degree turn - then flew through a few people to head back and snatch the meat away - fantastic. To show how fast she was I have a lot of pictures of a sky with no bird in it lol
You could see she was using a lot of tactics, zoom and boom and energy fighting to at which point she used the landscape to sneak up on her prey from a low angle. On other runs I think she was just zooming in hope to tire out her prey.
A few more facts, she will do a pre flight check and prepare her feathers. She has a special designed nose which allows her to breath when diving at 200mph. She will adjust her wings, tails and feather configuration during flight for maximum performance.
Here are a few more pictures of the other 'Aces' - I'll spare you they're 'stories' as this is already quite the read - anybody actually read this far? well done!
they didn't steal my heart as much as Matilda did but some of them use wing man tactics to zoom and boom prey - amazing stuff and It gave me a new interest. I'm actually saving up some money to do a falconry course - maybe one day if I win the lotto I'll join the very amazing club they have - flying with eagles is just
When you compare these birds to aircraft at every level it just gets even more..
dare I say it...
oh well..
AMAZING!
