I looked it up: for a 60-pound eight-year-old boy it would only take 30 owls to get off the ground. It would require enough money for taming and training them and for designing and constructing a light harness for them to become used to, to keep them apart and untangled. They could carry him perhaps two hundred yards. If you start with 60 owls they might go four or five miles. The training and harness are key, they bring it down to just a question of lifting power.
I had a friend when I was that age who was terrified of owls. Bats, rats, eating with a used fork from the sink, tough bigger boys, hot peppers, anything else besides owls was fine, no problem, but if he even was reminded of the existence of owls he'd start to freak out. One time it got late, it was starting to get dark and we were walking back to the houses, down a trail under trees, and a dove or something made a sound somewhere. I gave him my jacket to put over his head and got a stick and told him if an owl came I'd fucking brain it. I wouldn't, of course, but none came, so.
In The Last Castle by Jack Vance they fly in a basket hung beneath a flock of big genetically engineered birds. The birds resent it, but they're bred to serve, so they carry you where you want to go but when they get there they land roughly, on purpose, to tumble you out, and they nudge each other's shoulders and chuckle. And if you tell them to wait for you while you do whatever you went there for, they might forget and go somewhere else.
3 comments:
I'm still waiting...
This kid will go far... As far as the owls take him.
I looked it up: for a 60-pound eight-year-old boy it would only take 30 owls to get off the ground. It would require enough money for taming and training them and for designing and constructing a light harness for them to become used to, to keep them apart and untangled. They could carry him perhaps two hundred yards. If you start with 60 owls they might go four or five miles. The training and harness are key, they bring it down to just a question of lifting power.
I had a friend when I was that age who was terrified of owls. Bats, rats, eating with a used fork from the sink, tough bigger boys, hot peppers, anything else besides owls was fine, no problem, but if he even was reminded of the existence of owls he'd start to freak out. One time it got late, it was starting to get dark and we were walking back to the houses, down a trail under trees, and a dove or something made a sound somewhere. I gave him my jacket to put over his head and got a stick and told him if an owl came I'd fucking brain it. I wouldn't, of course, but none came, so.
In The Last Castle by Jack Vance they fly in a basket hung beneath a flock of big genetically engineered birds. The birds resent it, but they're bred to serve, so they carry you where you want to go but when they get there they land roughly, on purpose, to tumble you out, and they nudge each other's shoulders and chuckle. And if you tell them to wait for you while you do whatever you went there for, they might forget and go somewhere else.
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