Another Bird Story

For those of you who have not seen it (and also those of you who have), Dunlap, California, is a thermal soaring site in the Eastern Sierra, 40 miles northeast of Fresno. It's a reliable site, soarable the year round, with a launch and landing that are challenging, but not too horribly bad. It's a good place for Novice pilots to gain altitude experience, Intermediate pilots to develop thermaling skills, and more ambitious pilots to start going XC. The best time of year is in the spring -- April through June -- when the valleys are warm, the upper air is cold, and the thermals are big, smooth, fat, and tall.
Dunlap is a very pretty site. Like most ridges in the Eastern Sierra, it gets sufficient rainfall in the spring that the slopes are green, the meadows are filled with flowers, and the mountains to the west are covered with snow. Spring also brings clouds of harmless insects: mayflies, dragonflies, moths and the like. These insects are food for flocks of swifts, that climb, bank, turn, and dive with superlative skill in pursuit of their diminutive prey.
It is with one of these swifts that my tale is concerned. The year was 1988, the month was May, and I was cruising high over launch in my beloved old Eclipse-17. (Yes, this happened long ago, when men were men, birds were birds, and inexperienced pilots learned to fly on gliders with neutral roll stability). A flash of movement caught my eye. I looked up, and saw a swift headed straight towards me.
The swift was traveling at full speed, like a miniature combat aircraft, in lethal pursuit of some hapless bug. It was also on a collision course with my left wingtip -- a fact of which it appeared to be completely unaware. There was no time for me to react; all I could do was watch with horrified fascination.
At the last moment, just as collision seemed inevitable, the swift appeared to realize that something was terribly wrong. It rolled level, pulled up hard, and cleared my wingtip by inches...
...then it hit my wingtip vortex.
The results were impressive. The poor creature got clobbered -- rolled more times than you can imagine in much less time than you would believe possible. It finally recovered and flew away, a dizzier and one hopes a wiser bird.