Bird Brain

If I ran Ford I’d be investing in R&D on the bird brain.

Seriously!

I had a chance while waiting for my car to get fixed to watch a flock of black birds wheeling through the skies around the dealership.

The birds cruised in and out of the air space in perfect formation. How do they do that? Up and down, left and right, in and out the birds wheeled over the buildings and roads and settled on the power lines spaced about 6-inches apart from each other.

Then, on a moment’s notice they leapt off the wire into the sky to perform another low altitude air show before settling back to the same wire.

Astounding.

No collisions. No feather benders. No rear-ending. No tail-gating.

Just precision flying for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, on the freeway just yards from the bird roost was an an endless display of collisions, fender benders and rear ending. Obviously, the car drivers weren’t watching the birds.

Imagine if we could teach airplanes to fly like birds. Instead of lining up to land, stacked in the sky as we have all seen, the flights could swoop down on the airport landing one after another in a model of cooperation.

Like a startled flock, airplanes could all take off at once mindful of each others position.

When’s the last time you saw two birds collide in mid-air?

Now, there’s something to think about.

It could change the whole way we think about air travel.

“Flock 1003 to Colorado Springs is now departing from branch B-12.”

We’d all take off at once. That would be exciting!