--- On Sun, 6/21/09, Philip Veerman <> wrote:
> Birds crash into large buildings too and buildings are a lot
> bigger and slower moving than planes.
Although from what I've seen, birds usually hit windows which either permit a
view through the building or reflect the outside world making the bird think
there is no obstruction. :)
Belinda wrote:
> One wonders why the birds don't take the evasive
> action. Surely a loud, large plane bearing down
> is hard to miss, and birds have considerably
> better maneuverability than a plane.
Let's suppose a jet is flying at a takeoff or landing speed of around 275Kmh.
That's 76m per second - so it will cover half a kilometre in 6.5 seconds. In
the case of the Hudson flight, it had actually just taken off, so it could have
been travelling at a higher speed. Most of the noise of the engines goes out
the back where the thrust goes. The plane was probably approaching the birds
from behind and underneath - making it less likely for the birds to see it.
Also, the geese were flying in formation and would not be expecting to avoid
anything or break formation at a height.
When you combine all these things and consider that birds often fail to avoid a
car travelling at a much slower speed (I remember reading a New Scientist
article which explained this in terms of how bird eyesight works)... The amount
of time for the birds to react was probably small...
In short - there's lots of reasons why the birds might not react in time.
Rob
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
=============================
|
