This is simply not true in my experience. I have personally seen birds perform significant aerial maneuvers to avoid collision with my aircraft, going very close to 130MPH. By the time I see the bird it is often in a very steep dive, the bird saw my plane long before I saw the bird.
Once, while flying a glider, I shared the top of a thermal at 5,000 ft. with hundreds of swallows, darting all around me. I guess they were there to feed on the insects carried up there by the thermal, while I was up there because I needed the altitude to get home. Admittedly, I was only flying at 55 mph., and not making much noise.
I have also had a model airplane pull up in front of me, and that scared the crap out of me for a second, until I realized it wasn't the real thing - though, on reflection, it might have done serious damage if it hit the canopy or the horizontal stabilizer.
I'm surprised, not that they do something to avoid airplanes, but that it makes the situation better. Maybe birds are better at this than animals on roads, who often make the situation worse with their actions?
I think birds might just be better adapted to making highspeed course corrections than deer, squirrels, etc. Plus, they have the advantage of another dimension (and gravity) to use for getting out of the way.
Consider also that if a deer is spooked and freezes on the highway, you hit it. If a bird is spooked and freezes in mid-air, it falls to the ground.
Birds are very different from drones in the sense that birds often practice active collision avoidance, at least in the case of encounters with a small aircraft. I have often seen birds take evasive maneuvers when a collision is imminent, much more quickly than I could have as the pilot of the aircraft. Drones at this point have no sense of self preservation when faced with a collision with an aircraft and are therefore in my opinion much more dangerous.
The Paradise Valley generally receives less snow than other places in Montana. My wife and I drive a Prius year round and typically a grocery store trip is ~40 minutes round trip.
We're able to take the Prius on 95% of our winter drives.
This last winter was quite warm, we were flying kites outside over Thanksgiving with our extended family.
Hello, thanks for your feedback. I posted this because I feel like it is a very unique space/opportunity and is in the spirit of fostering startup progress. I guess many Show HN posts could be considered to be an advertisement. Usually it is an advertisement for an individual's skills or awesome ability. In this case, my wife's and my awesome ability is restoring a run-down airport facility and trying to make it into something more modern. A lot of hard work has gone into this space and I believe that this opportunity is a reflection of our hard work, just like a lot of the software projects out there.
I apologize if you feel like my intent is too commercial for the subject line chosen.
I believe this to be true in other aspects of professional life as well. When I was learning to fly to become a commercial pilot having a mentor who was himself an accomplished pilot and mechanic helped tremendously. I was able to advance through my flight ratings at a much greater speed than if I had been learning on my own.
I think it's true in everything. Is one of the most powerful things that you can have IMO.
Having someone that went through the same that you did, and that now is helping with insight, and that tries to motivate is the key of success in anything.
This is one thing that I noticed reading biographies on successful people, they always, at some point had contact with other successful people, became truly inspired by them.
Frankly, as a new parent who lives in the US I am worried that my family would be punished for an action such as what is described in the article. I think that the climate of irrational fear combined with exuberant supervision lead to an environment where decisions which would seem rational to a European could be construed to be dangerous to children in the US. Like walking home unattended. I don't think this fear of coming to live in the United States is unjustified if your values don't entirely match those of the local population.
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I also don't think that this kind of enforcement action is a rare event, and that this is why it is being covered in the media. In my opinion, it is being covered in the media because it is a significant example of an event which illustrates the divide in the US between what the majority believes (letting children walk home unsupervised is dangerous) and what a smaller number of parents challenging this establishment believe.
Unfortunately (and I say this as a member of the organization), I feel like the AOPA is fighting - or at least dragging its feet - on the issue, since transition to any other fuel is likely to add some kind of expense or inconvenience.
