Throughout my flying career, I have had a number of memorable encounters with those other fliers with whom we share the sky: birds. (None involved competing to occupy the same chunk of airspace at the same time.) The first such experience was while soaring in a thermal over a mountainous slope in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. I was so intent on the challenge that I almost didn’t notice the two large hawks that had joined me in the spiraling pursuit of free altitude. I became so mesmerized by the sight of these fellow fliers with wings outstretched and immobile that I ultimately lost track of the thermal and began losing altitude.
Another experience came last year when I was in a Grumman Widgeon on short final to a splashdown on Lake Whatcom in the Northwest. While abeam a small island in the middle of the lake, I was attracted peripherally to the highest point of the island, a tall pine tree at the top of which perched a stunning American eagle. He was so close to our left wing tip that I could see his head turning nonchalantly to follow our passage. It made an indelible entry in my mental log.
More recently, I was hiking on Catalina Island and sat on a rocky outcrop of a palisade that overlooked the Pacific. Rolling breakers crashed incessantly against the rocks below, and a dozen seagulls soared effortlessly in the wind-driven ridge lift.
Gazing at the gulls from above gives one an inner sense of wanting to participate in this display of freedom. It was easy to understand how those before us became envious of birds and imagined a variety of ways in which man could be lifted skyward.
An early fable tells about how King Kavus of Persia considered that flight might be possible by tethering a number of powerful birds to his throne and inspiring them to fly skyward. The inspiration was to be food hung on poles above the hungry birds. No one knows if this scheme was attempted or how much bird power would have been required to lift the imaginative king.
From Greek mythology, we have the story of Icarus and Daedalus—who attempted to escape a labyrinthine prison by crafting wings of wax and feathers. Daedalus warned his impetuous son not to fly so high "lest your wings of wax shall melt upon getting too close to the heat of the sun." So it was that Icarus became the first victim of structural failure in flight.
It is unlikely that anyone actually attempted to harness bird power, but there were many efforts to construct feathered wings. None were successful, but in some cases, the spans did slow the fall of early pioneers and spare their lives.
Man also attempted to emulate birds by creating all sorts of flapping-wing contrivances (ornithopters). None lifted a man off the ground, but they did provide profitable patronage for local doctors. What escaped early inventors is that man is too heavy to fly like a bird. He has large muscles and a heavy bone structure to carry him over the ground, while birds have small, hollow, lightweight bones.
A nagging question occurred to me while marveling at the soaring flight of those seagulls. What would have caused man to develop the concept of flight if there had been no birds or other flying creatures to emulate? And without birds to demonstrate that the skies were safe for navigation, how could anyone have dared to imagine trespassing in the domain of the gods, the source of powerfully threatening and inexplicable forces (such as eclipses, tornadoes, great storms, lightning, and thunder)?
I am convinced that the need for flight would have eventually impelled man skyward, but how much would his progress have been delayed without our feathered compatriots to lead the way? (Such a question also emphasizes the importance of preserving all other forms of animal life because of what we have yet to learn from them.)
My thoughts obviously wandered, because I also pondered how early man arrived at the discovery that tailfeathers could be used to stabilize the flight of arrows.
Man-carrying balloons might have been invented without the encouragement of our feathered friends. These, it seems, evolved from the observation that hot air rises and carries heavier-than-air debris with it. But many did not consider balloons a form of flight. Instead, it was regarded simply as a form of levitation.
The secret of modern flight seems to have been best understood by Sir George Cayley, a nineteenth-century British scientist who is considered the "father of aerial navigation." Like Leonardo da Vinci, Cayley studied the flight of birds but discovered the subtlety of camber, to which he applied the principles of physics.
Our feathered friends continue to teach us about safe flight, but we do not always pay attention. Birds do not land on dangerous sites. They understand the concept of high density altitude. They do not attempt to fly in weather conditions that exceed their capabilities. They do not rely on gadgetry to maintain positional awareness. They have the sense to land before running out of energy. They understand and respect their limitations.
When man observed that birds had wings and could fly, he was envious. But as centuries passed, jealousy evolved into curiosity and eventually into challenge. Man has learned much from the birds, but he still regards them with envy and has so much more to learn from them.
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