On a related note, the biggest bird that ever flew was Argentavis magnificens, an ancestor of the Giant Condor. Impressive picture of replica here.

>> Discovered decades ago and formally described in 1980, Argentavis magnificens is the largest bird known. It lived six million years ago during the Miocene period throughout Argentina. It is nearly the size of a Cessna 152 light aircraft, with a 23-foot (7-meter) wing span and weighing approximately 150-pounds (70-kilograms).

It would have been impossible to take off from a standing start. The bird probably used some of the same techniques used by modern-day hang-glider pilots such as running on sloping ground to get thrust or energy, or running with a headwind.
But once it was on a thermal, it could easily rise up a mile or two without any flapping of its wings -- a free ride, just circling. Then at the top, the bird could simply glide to the next thermal and in this way it could certainly travel 200 miles a day -ScienceBlogs excerpts

edit: And the biggest creature that ever flew was a Quetzalcoatlus.

>>A pterodactyloid pterosaur. More recent estimates based on greater knowledge of azhdarchid proportions place its wingspan at 10-11 meters (33-36 ft). However, similar claims to an upper size limit for flight accompanied the discovery of large (up to 9 m (30 ft)) Pteranodon, and azhdarchids larger than Quetzalcoatlus with wingspans 12 meters or more (such as Hatzegopteryx) have been discovered.
A 2002 study suggested a body mass of 90–120 kilograms (200–260 lb) for Quetzalcoatlus, considerably lower than most other recent estimates.[7] Higher estimates tend toward 200–250 kilograms (440–550 lb). -wiki excerpts

Thank you Haldaug!

In reply to this comment by Haldaug:
*promote

too awesome! thanks Ornthy!

In reply to this comment by Ornthoron:
Here, I made you an embeddable playlist for the great Maria Schneider video, so we can listen to the rest of the song as well:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D72686EF437CAAEA

Here, I made you an embeddable playlist for the great Maria Schneider video, so we can listen to the rest of the song as well:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D72686EF437CAAEA

Beautiful solo by Ingrid Jensen on Flügelhorn. You can hear she is thinking about hang gliding while playing.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Maria, Schneider, Orchestra, Hang, Gliding' to 'Maria, Schneider, Orchestra, Hang, Gliding, Ingrid Jensen, Donny McCaslin' - edited by Ornthoron

sure, go ahead. nice piece of music, btw

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
May I add this to your wings channel?

http://www.videosift.com/video/Maria-Schneider-Orchestra-Hang-Gliding

May I add this to your wings channel?

http://www.videosift.com/video/Maria-Schneider-Orchestra-Hang-Gliding

Tags for this video have been changed from 'skiing, hang gliding, slope, splat' to 'skiing, hang gliding, ski jump, slope, flying, splat, face plant, ouch, fail, landing' - edited by kulpims

Verr'nice, verr'nice. It looked perfect to this aviator, in fact.

^dag: a Cessna 172 (just for example) can glide 1 nautical mile (6080 feet / also ~2 km) per 500 feet of altitude in calm air. Not too shabby -- the guys in the vid just didn't have much altitude to begin with, I'd say about 1000' before the engine quit. Also, once the pilot had selected his road and found it good, he was setting the kite down soonest rather than keeping it up as long as possible (the road below was good, the road up ahead might have been less so).

(edited)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Very cool - they got lucky on that empty street. It's amazing how quickly they go down after it conks - I always thought that small planes could glide for quite a bit more.

>> ^Truth:
Sucks that we don't have wings like that flying squirrel...


http://www.videosift.com/video/Awesome-Gliding-Suit

Just Plug Me In Just Like I Was Eddie Harris You're Eating Crazy
Cheese Like You'd Think I'm From Paris You Know I Get Fly You
Think I Get High You Know That I'm Gone And I'm A Tell You All Why
So Tell Me Who Are You Dissing Maybe I'm Missing The Reason That
You're Smiling or Wilding So Listen In My Head I Just Want To
Take 'em Down Imagination Set Loose And I'm Gonna Shake 'em
Down Let It Flow Like A Mud Slide When I Get On I Like To Ride And
Glide I've Got Depth Of Perception In My Text Y'all I Get Props At My
Mention 'Cause I Vex Y'All So What'cha Want You're So Funny With
The Money That You Flaunt Where'd You Get Your Information From
You Think That You Can Front When Revelation Comes

You Can't Front On That

Well They Call Me Mike D The Ever Loving Man I'm Like Spoonie Gee
I'm The Metropolitician You Scream And You Holler About My
Chevy Impala But The Sweat Is Getting Wet Around The Ring Around
Your Collar But Like A Dream I'm Flowing Without No Stopping
Sweeter Than A Cherry Pie With Ready Whip Topping Goin' From
Mic To Mic Kickin' It Wall To Wall Well I'll Be Calling Out You People
Like A Casting Call It's Wack When You're Jacked In The Back Of A
Ride With Your Know With Your Flow When You're Out Getting By
Believe Me What You See Is What You Get And You See Me Coming Off
As You Can Bet I Think I'm Losing My Mind This Time
This Time I'm Losing My Mind

You Can't Front On That

But Little Do You Know About Something That I Talk About I'm Tired
Of Driving It's Due Time That I Walk About But In The Meantime, I'm
Wise To The Demise I've Got Eyes In The Back Of My Head So I Realize
Well I'm Dr. Spock I'm Here To Rock Y'All I Want You Off The Wall
If You're Playing The Wall So What'cha Want Y'All Suckers Write Me
Checks And Then They Bounce So I Reach In My Pocket For The
Fresh Amount See I'm The Long Leaner Victor The Cleaner
I'm The Illest Motherfucker From Here To Gardena I'm As Cool As A
Cucumber In A Bowl Of Hot Sauce You've Got The Rhyme And Reason
But No Cause So If You're Hot To Trot You Think You're Slicker
Than Grease I've Got News For You Crews
You'll Be Sucking Like A Leach

[B-Real]
I got the big brown boots
when you wanna get kicked like a rhyme
from the heart and the mind
there was a time when the blunt got licked
I take a hit of the weed and then blew a smoke screen
No Visine just a little, Afro-Sheen
and a High Times magazine
I like to smoke y'all, but the pigs come sweating
they like the smell of the weed that I'm smoking
they can't have none of the number one sess-stash
So keep your hands off the hash
Don't act rash, cause if you move too fast
I'll pull out my gat and blast your sorry ass...

And you can kiss my ass, haha
That was the "M" to the "I" to the "K" to the "E" to the "D" y'all
Ghetto Block

In June of '07, I went down to Ecuador to train at an archaeological field school. I was an Anthro minor and intended to pursue a career in Biological Anthropology, specializing in molecular clocking (deducing rates of evolution through DNA base pair variation), and wanted some kind of field experience before finishing undergrad. I just googled archae field schools and picked one. It was run by a university in Florida to which I had no connection whatsoever. It was run by two profs and had two separate classes: one in archaeology (digging) and one in ethnography (meeting people and writing about them). I ended up in the archaeological field school.

Upon arriving, I met the rest of the participants. Many of them knew each other, and I was somewhat of a novelty. The first night, I managed to take the smart but prudish girl back to my room for some "Hey, I just met you, why don't we fool around" action. Little did I know what I was getting into.

She turned out to be crazy. Like top-notch, grade A, never-been-kissed, "I'll give you $100 to take my virginity" crazy. It didn't take me long to make it clear that I was not that in need of cash, and that I was not falling in love. This did not go over well, and for the first two weeks of the six week program, I had to apologize to every fucking person in the camp for subjecting them to the tears of this crazy, immature, raving girl.

However, (this is where it gets interesting) during those first two weeks, I was spending all day in the field away from Crazy, who was studying ethnography in the coastal village where we were camped about 6km away. All day, I was troweling dirt and plotting pits next to one of the hottest and most engaged-to-be-married 20 year old girls I've ever met. At first, her neutrality as a "spoken for" woman was a good haven from the rest of the crowd, who were still kind of up-in-arms about my bagging and bouncing Ms. Crazy. And so, my pit partner and I got along swimmingly, spending the grueling but relieved-from-social-antagonism days talking about this and that. Now, I gotta tell ya, I'm a strapping lad (about 2m ((that's 6'6")) and 115kg ((250 lbs))) and I was very good at the field work. There is very little that impresses women, especially 20 year old engaged-to-be-married women, like being physically excellent at something right in front of them.

Around the end of week two, I started to notice that my pit partner and I were getting all electric and stuff around each other, making eyes and whispering sweet nothings as we toiled away in our dirt hole. Things got spicier and spicier, especially when I found out that the fiance was a wannabe prize fighter who couldn't hold a job, had cheated on her, and held his crotch rocket in about as much esteem as his wife-to-be (also, he bought her a $20k ring and made her mother make the payments on it). As I clearly could not give a flying cockroach's penis about this douche, I let myself really fall for this girl.

At the end of week three, we had four days off to travel wherever we chose. As I tend to be a loner if I don't find a very, very like-minded crony, I was planning to head south to Cuenca for a long weekend of solo traveling. But, as luck/fate/coincidence would have it, I met the soon-to-be-married lady and her traveling group at the bus stop just outside the village, also planning to go to Cuenca. Their group was minus a strong leader and without much Spanish, so I hooked up with them, "and it has made all the difference."

In Cuena, the girl and I fell in love. We didn't touch each other that weekend, but luck/fate/coincidence left us alone together too many times for there not to have been meaning in it. We talked by glowing midnight fountains, got lost on a house party dancefloor, drank too much shitty beer, and stared at the stars from the rooftop we had to crawl out a hotel window to sit on. Neither of us mentioned it out loud, but only used strong suggestion and innuendo. We both knew what was happening, but weren't sure if it was going to work. As I have failed to mention, but the astute reader might already suspect, my former liason Ms. Crazy considered herself to be Soon-to-Be-Married's best friend in Ecuador. She was right there in Cuenca with us the whole time, in complete denial of what was right in her face.

We returned from Cuenca on a Sunday, and I spent Monday and Tuesday white knuckled and sweating as I worked right next to a woman I could have ripped the perfect breast concealing oversized sweatshirt off and really gotten dirty. As she was engaged and about as virtuous as they come these days, no one suspected a thing. We were headed right straight towards Affair City on our pheromone and hormone fueled freight train, and no one else even had a whiff of it.

To this day, not one of the 20 or so other students has any idea that on that Tuesday after Cuenca, as we sat on the porch of my cabin--me playing guitar and her studying for the GRE--this girl and I began one of the world's greatest love affairs. That night, we finally put into words the feelings and fears, and each one assured the other that it would be safe as long as no one knew. At a peak moment in the conversation, I must have asked something like "Well, what's next, then?" The words she answered still echo in my mind whenever I have trouble sleeping. Sultry, slow and with head tilted, she said, "You wanna test the waters?" and glided across the porch and into my lightless room. I sat thinking Oh my god. She just fucking went into my cabin. Holy fuck, I'm gonna. Fuck. Shit. Wow. Wait a sec, she's in my cabin. STFU and get in there! She had to open the door to check if I was coming before the dazzle faded from my mind. I pushed her back into the darkness.

That was nearly two years ago now, and as I write, I am putting this princess to bed in our apartment in Taipei. We carried on an illicit affair, with trysts on 1 a.m. beaches, in shower stalls and in my Pacific breeze filled cabin for a month in Ecuador, and it has lasted to this day, across four continents and literally around the world. I have never written this story down before, and I just thank AC for giving me the forum.

True to power, the Dark Magician glides forth to take his place. The alchemical mixture he has conjured equivocates to one hundred gold pieces towards his conviction in the great art. All hail the dark warrior of the Sift!

Congrats