Categories: Soaring, Not Trike Related
January 17, 2014
By Barry Schiff
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
Although this beautiful piece of prose is well known to pilots, it could not have been meant for us. When written by Leonardo da Vinci some 500 years ago, there were no pilots. Perhaps the Italian master of the Renaissance was imagining what flight would or could be like. More likely, he was inspired by the flight of birds (of which there are more than 10,000 species.)
When man (both genders) observed that birds had wings, he was jealous and tried for centuries to emulate them. He might have been most envious of the peregrine falcon, speediest in the avian world. Clocked in a 45-degree dive at 217 mph, it can outrun most lightplanes operating at redline. Think of how embarrassing it would be to be passed by a bird (or to experience a bird strike from behind). Clocked at 106 mph, the spine-tailed swift is the fastest in level, wing-flapping flight.