Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: astronomers, flesh and blood gliders, out-of-context quotes Message-ID: <395@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 14-Sep-85 14:49:52 EDT Article-I.D.: imsvax.395 Posted: Sat Sep 14 14:49:52 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 02:37:29 EDT Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 92 There are several kinds of animals on our planet which can glide, but are not generally capable of flying. These include the flying squirrel, the flying fish, and one or two kinds of lizards. In each of these, gliding is basically an escape mechanism which they use occasionally to get out of harms way, and which they use to cover small distances, typically 50 or 100 feet. The flying fish and lizards must jump vigorously to achieve their shorts glides, while the squirrel takes off from trees. None of these creatures RELIES on gliding as its primary mode of transportation and, in that sense, there are no true gliders amongst the animals of our planet. There are none now, there have never been any, and there never shall be any. The reasons for this are so many, so obvious, and so compelling, that only someone like Bill Jefferys, whose entire life has been spent absorbing dogma and sealing his mind off from logic, would have any problem with them. A (partial) list of such reasons would include the following: 1. Such a creature (as a quetzalcoatlus northropi), assuming it could only glide, would only be able to take off from high ground. Did any of you readers ever see a sailplane or a hang glider take off from low ground? Real thermal currents only start from about 100 feet up or so, even over asphalt. It would have to have been a carrion feeder (unless Jefferys has some explanation as to how a glider might could have caught some super-slow prehistoric duck while staying airborne). It would have had to land on low ground, eat carrion (thereby gaining several pounds), and then (since there would have been NO WAY IN HELL for it to have gotten back in the air from where it stood), DRAGGED its hiney AND ITS 45 FOOT WINGS slowly and clumsily back up to the top of the mountain again, hoping that all of the predators along the way, out of the goodness of their hearts, would refrain from eating it. 2. Any creature which could only glide would have no home. Its life would be a continual migration in the direction of the prevailing winds. How then would it care for its young, back at the nest? 3. How many days have any of you readers seen it go with no wind? How many days can any of you live without food? But a crank like Bill Jefferys has no use for logic such as this. He quotes Wan Langston's obviously misguided statement: "It appears, then, that *Quetzalcoatlus* may have lived on fairly flat, low-lying ground. There, as is the habit of a vulture, it may well have had to wait each morning until the sun warmed the ground and strong thermal updrafts developed. In the larger pterosaurs the musculature that animated the wing was not impressively massive, and the hind limbs were long but weak. All things considered, it seems unlikely that *Quetzalcoatlus* could have run on its hind legs and flapped its wings energetically. Still, if the animal could stand up on its hind legs and catch the appropriate breeze, a single flap of the wings and a kick with the legs may have been all it needed for takeoff." And then goes on to say: >Langston is not describing the same behemoth which flies by >expending large amounts of power flapping its wings that Ted does. >For a gliding animal such as Langston postulates, large amounts of >wing power are not required, as the necessary lift comes from thermals. >True, getting airborne is not easy, but Langston proposes a plausible >mechanism, well known from living (though smaller) creatures. Once >airborne there is no reason why *Quetzalcoatlus* could not have >remained aloft all day, as unpowered sailplanes do today. Now, we've all seen vultures take off from low ground by simply spreading their wings and ascending into the rising heat waves coming off the ground, haven't we? I mean, these guys seem to be describing the Texas pterosaur as a prehistoric G. Gordon Liddy, with superman cape attached, only the real G. Gordon Liddy at least had the sense (if you could call it that) to try his stunt from the roof of his uncles barn. The technique didn't work for Liddy (who spent several months in the hospital) any better than it would have for Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, which outweighed Liddy by about 100 lbs. The funniest part of Jefferys' article is his asking me to clear any future quotes from University of Texas professors with HIM. I mean, I gave Langston the benefit of the doubt, Bill. I quoted the INTELLIGENT part of his article. Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com