This week seems to have been one characterised by flying videos:
How about a cockpit view from an RAF Typhoon as it flies across Wales and England. The commentary on this one gives a scary perspective on what is going on:
Through the valley, 3G, speed 420, height 250 ft.
That 3G isn’t talking about the mobile signal available and the 420 is knots or 480 miles-per-hour, at 250 ft. As a comparison Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) is 315 ft high and the London Eye is 443 ft high. As further comparison it would take less than a third of a second to travel the 250 ft at 420 knots, that’s the margin of error!
Plenty of Para-glider skill required to get to this level of agility. One thing I want to know though, how do you pluck up the courage to do some of those manoeuvres for the first time?
This video gives a fascinating insight into the flight paths of birds moving in and out of a perch. It’s amazing to see how they coordinate themselves without any master coordinator:
There are lots of these videos uploaded by Dennis Hlynsky using the same technique in all sorts of situations. I really liked the way that snow creates a changing abstract drawing:
(May I apologise now for the somewhat tenuous alliteration of perches in the title of this post, I stumbled upon planes and para-gliders and needed something to go with them)
Graham Chastney 