n5lp
fugio ergo sum
I don't think I can impart any new wisdom but the experience made an impression on me.
In my area we have many turkey vultures and I am alert for them. I find they are almost always at around 500 ft AGL which makes it easier. I have made evasive maneuvers even as recently as two weeks ago while in the landing pattern. They are huge and slow flying and that tends to help make it easy to spot them.
Yesterday I was flying at about 155 knots at 1,500 MSL over the Delaware River of West Texas. I had my attention out the front of the airplane in a relaxed way. Suddenly, right now, there was a hawk and I reacted by pulling and the hawk dived at the same time. This was all within half a second or so. I got a real good close up look at that bird and missed it by 10 feet or so. I apologized to my passenger as I felt I maneuvered pretty abruptly. As it turned out I only pulled a bit over 2 Gs and he didn't see the bird. I felt that even if I had hit the bird I would have had time to duck down.
This is all with my attention outside the cockpit. I guess the lesson is to look out as much as possible and I have seen hawks at quite high altitudes so that doesn't only apply when low.
Boy I have a vivid picture in my mind of the exact feather patterns on that bird.
In my area we have many turkey vultures and I am alert for them. I find they are almost always at around 500 ft AGL which makes it easier. I have made evasive maneuvers even as recently as two weeks ago while in the landing pattern. They are huge and slow flying and that tends to help make it easy to spot them.
Yesterday I was flying at about 155 knots at 1,500 MSL over the Delaware River of West Texas. I had my attention out the front of the airplane in a relaxed way. Suddenly, right now, there was a hawk and I reacted by pulling and the hawk dived at the same time. This was all within half a second or so. I got a real good close up look at that bird and missed it by 10 feet or so. I apologized to my passenger as I felt I maneuvered pretty abruptly. As it turned out I only pulled a bit over 2 Gs and he didn't see the bird. I felt that even if I had hit the bird I would have had time to duck down.
This is all with my attention outside the cockpit. I guess the lesson is to look out as much as possible and I have seen hawks at quite high altitudes so that doesn't only apply when low.
Boy I have a vivid picture in my mind of the exact feather patterns on that bird.