I can’t resist flying toys. I have a whole bunch of inexpensive R/C toys from brands like Air Hogs. So when I was in Radio Shack the other day, I couldn’t help myself when I saw this, the Transformers Starscream Micro Flyer. I thought, “Hey, Transformers are cool…and that’s a pretty good loking F-22 model”. So on a whim, I bought it.
Fast forward to this evening. I finally get a chance to give the thing a whirl by taking it to a nearby park. After flying it around for nearly half an hour, and deciding that it’s one cool little gadget, I start getting a little more adventurous with my maneuvers. At one point, it starts to go off towards the far end of the field, and gets out of radio range. It glides to a soft landing about 10 yards from a tree with a hawk perched in it. I hadn’t noticed the bird before, but I did then. Instantly, I see the bird take flight, and it swoops down and picks up my poor defenseless plane. I start running after it, hoping it will drop my plane or stop somewhere I can recover my stupid toy. As I’m running after it, a stream of thoughts enters my head:
“Shit! Come back here with my airplane!”
“Well, if you gotta lose 40 bucks, at least this way gives you a cool story”
“There’s something ironic about a Raptor being kidnapped by a raptor.”
“Wait a minute…come back with my airplane!!”
Finally, the bird landed on top of the tall fence of a baseball field. It dropped my styrofoam toy with an emphasis that I can only imagine was an expression of disgust. So I got my plane back, and except for half a dozen deep puncture wounds from the bird’s claws, it’s just fine. Looks like hell, but still flies well.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is. “Keep your toys away from birds of prey” isn’t exactly something with much potential for day-to-day use.
I know how the bird feels. That’s how I felt the last time I ate a rice cake. We love hawks, except when they come and steal the doves off our birdfeeder.
That almost happened to me once, I was on the park flying one of my ornithopters (here´s a video of the model in question .
It was a very calm evening, warm, no wind and already getting darker, I tossed the model for a short flight and it started to orbit between 2 and 3 meters over the grass, when it was already coming down, and not more than 5 meters from me, a big hawk darted out from a nearby tree, it zoomed down claws poised until it was not more than 10 centimeters from the poor orinithopter. The image it´s still in my mind, the bird was a big, as I said, Aplomado Hawk, about 1 meter wingspan; it posed itself on the typical raptor attack position against the western reddening sky, the wings in a sharp V, claws extending forward and the neck bent down, it seemed to hang there for a second or two with the model right at reach of it´s claws, then something on the birds brain hinted that the thing wasn´t digestible and zoomed up into another tree disappearing completely. I was breathless, it was something so extraordinary that I wouldn´t had minded at all it the hawk had torn the model to pieces (and it was a hand made thing), it was perfectly wonderful and a memory worth more than the model itself.
Funny, Ale, but I don’t remember having the same majestic impressions of this one. Maybe I needed a sunset in the background or something. It was still pretty cool…would have almost been worth losing the plane if it had taken it away, just for the story. As it is, the story is a little less cool because I got it back in 10 seconds.
And the hawk did fly it back into radio range. I made the props spin, hoping the noise would make it let go. Later I realized that birds of prey are probably used to having quite a commotion down there as they carry off a squirrel.
That’s very funny. File that story away in memory and keep that plane to show off in the future. You never have a camera when needed. Although many forget to use it, when they do have one.
Heh. Birds used to formate on my Electrafun (don’t giggle, it’s an out-of-the-box RC plane, see here for pics) but never tried to attack it. Wonder if the upswept and pointed wingtips looked like a bird to them?
I used to fly slopecombat. Which is basically where you take nearly indestructable RC gliders out to a large hill side, use the updraft from the hill to stay airborne, and try to knock the other gliders out of the sky.
What sometimes makes it intersting is that large birds of prey like hawks and eagles also utilize this updraft and don’t always take kindly to our plane invading their space. I’ve seen other planes get hit by a hawk, but never seen one get carried away.
I just got into the R/C hobby with airplanes a few months ago. At our clubs flying field Hawks/Eagles/Raptors/whathaveyou (I dont know what they really are) like to circle over and watch the planes fly. Ive heard stories of the birds attacking some of the planes and leaving marks in the tails.
