[extropy-chat] pigeons

[scerir at libero.it]

Spike:
> When I read this I had to just stop and laugh my
> fanny off. 

A friend wrote this, to another list, about the same topic...
:-)

<Let me tell a story ...
I started taking flying lessons when I was 14. The time arrived for me to do
a dual cross-country flight (with an instructor). Flying a triangular course
with about 75 mile legs. I was a really good stick and rudder type guy at
that age. The instructor got in the airplane and proceeded to prop his feet 
up on the panel and open a Superman comic book -- hell, he was less than
20 himself. First leg of the trip was easy ... there was an Omni and I just 
had to "fly the needle". The second leg was "dead reckoning" ' --- follow the 
map in your lap stuff. I have never decided exactly what went wrong ... but I was
lost from the second my wheels left the ground. Finally I found about the
right sized city, with the airport in the right area of town, runways
running in the right direction ... and I called Joplin Radio and told them,
"Here I come". As I pulled up to the terminal and the instructor took his 
face out of the comic book, I saw the sign ... "Welcome to the City of Pittsburg 
Kansas ... about 30 miles from where I wanted to go. My instructor about shit 
a brick... I would (now) have given my time in the hot spot to listen to his
conversation with the Joplin Flight Service Station canceling the flight
plan. If pigeons do it this way ... they must have learned from some old 
hands how to buzz water towers to find out where they are.
-John>