Tippler Talk II
(Internet Published) Aug 2000
Friends, it does not matter to me, if you want to try for world records,
national records, club records or your own personal top time on the honor
system or simply flying for your own pleasure. The basics are the same.
There must be a concentrated effort to utilize maximum daylight, weeks, to
release kits of tipplers in the early dawn and try to fly them into twilight
or even dark. The basic trick is to train tipplers to fly during the last
6-7 hours of daylight, teach the kit to drop only when droppers are flashed
and incorporating the switching on of the loft top floodlighting.
This being done a sudden jump to an early dark release should confuse and
disorientate the kit in such a way that the kit will fly all day and into
dark, to drop, as usual with the appropriate clearance, from droppers and
lights.
Therefore, it all adds up to trickery and like all good tricks can only be
performed rarely. With tipplers, if one pulls this trick too often the kit
will realize that they are being "had" and will take to all manner of what
Americans call "Goofing Out". If any man things that he can get a marathon
time from Tippler on every Sunday then he is about to be very disappointed.
Regular exercise flying will result in mediocre times of about 3 hours.
There was one claim where a certain American suggested 6 hours per day from
a kit as a standard. He was talking about rather an obscure breed not
tipplers but frankly I don't believe it. The same breed was said to have
flown 27 hours +, and I don't believe that either.
Oh, it may be true and I may be wrong but I'd have to witness it with my own
eyes. Try it yourselves with any breed anywhere in the world and I suggest
that you will fail. Very recently I had information about a man who jumped
his kit into early dawn flying launch. The kit failed and in distress
dropped into trees. This was predictable--the kit was not used to bad light.
Unless a kit is trained to be familiar with bad light at dusk or into
darkness, it will not readily accept early dawn release.
Without early dawn release, no body is about to get tipplers to fly marathon
times and he will not get away with the trick on a regular basis. Many a
good tippler kit is good for just one Marathon attempt, thereafter to become
quite mediocre. It is a remarkable achievement to get pigeons to fly dawn to
dusk. It is not natural. The surveillance of such a kit calls for expertise
and frankly the hours of correct surveillance is the most boring task on
earth. Rather like looking at the wall paper all day. The only pleasure or
logic, is if one is in the company of some excellent person or persons and
who will provide conversation, the tea and the grub.
It was my own task about 1950 to time for a man who sat there and "sniffed"
every 10 seconds. No conversation, no laughs, and I didn't even get a cup of
tea. His wife regarded me as an intruder and there I did hang about for
close to 18 hours. It took me 3 days to recover. Other men, who I timed for
were very different, every hour was a pleasure. A lot of laughs. Maybe a
little indigestion and a sore throat.
Nevertheless OK, sometimes extremely OK.