Research Buzzard

(A discussion Mark and I had reminded me of this.)

I had an aerodynamics prof who studied soaring flight early in his career. He captured a baby buzzard and domesticated it with the idea of getting it to fly in a wind tunnel. But lacking any adult buzzard examples, he said it preferred to walk everywhere, and had to be taught to fly by holding its wings and flapping them up and down. The buzzard eventually learned to fly, but by strenuous flapping.

However, one day while out flying it accidentally engaged a sort of energy-saving lock mechanism buzzards have in their wing structure, and it soared off in one direction never to be seen again.

At least, that was his story...