Yesterday I was outside doing some stuff, and this gigantic horse fly landed right next to me, after circling like a hughey.... looking for the best place to bite me.... as I swatted at it with my hand, it would just look annoyed and keep looking for the juiciest bit of me to bite...

Long story short, it was right there, so I swatted it.... bingo.... full contact....I got it so well it hit the wall so hard it actually made a clunking noise, then dropped onto the ground, then simply flew away?

I hit it fair on, with such force, chuck Norris might have blinked? How the hell can it be hit so fair and square, impact a wall hard enough for me to hear it, drop 100 times its body height onto solid concrete.... then just fly away?

So, my question? Why? Why does long grass or a short crop, tree branches etc bring a chopper or gyro to such destruction and bits flying off.... yet this insect (quite heavy) can be smashed, hit a wall and floor then fly off? They too have fragile wings moving rapidly... I know the air mollecules we feel make insects of miniscule weight actually 'swim' in our air like we do in water, but still... if we are swimming and get smashed on a rock, we wouldn't always walk away?

Fascinating any ideas?

Just because cockroaches can survive after a nuclear bomb......Humans are weak and fragile, Bugs are tough, tougher than Huey choppers! Hit that sucker with a tennis racket and see if he flys away!

I prefer the gentle "pop - sizzle" of a nice, high-voltage bug zapper.

...but the answer to your question, Muz, is that Nature isn't at all fair.

It is like my radio controlled chopper (single blade cyclic) I think it has a built in 'tree finder' if there is a tree, it will find it

I have splatted it in long grass, had to climb trees to get it out of the branches.... pulled it out of the branches with a rake.... hit the house....

Just stick it back on its skids, pull any grass out of the tail rotor gears and have another go .... it just has a bent mast so it wobbles a bit, and a couple of rotor strike dents on the tail boom...

still flies fine... FJ was very impressed with the quality of my crashes



Edit: Yes Jon, that is a great sound.... especially when it goes on zapping for almost a minute.... very enjoyable

A bug zapper is great! The toads love it, they all huddle underneath to get the good bits fresh off the "grill" kinda like a toad BBQ.
Of course the tennis racket is the only thing that works on the wood boring bees.

And for your "tree finder" that is like what all small children are born with, especially when they learn to ride a bicycle, they will hit the only power pole or mailbox on the whole street, often swerving several times before the lock on target.

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The Horseflies around here have a mean bite , they have a pincer type mouth that will actually remove a chunk of flesh

When I was a kid raised on a farm we had no toys so we made our own

I would wait until nighttime , turn on the outside light , and catch 3 or 4 moths flying around the bulb , put them inside one of mothers canning jars .

I called the jar an "airplane hangar" of course.

Whenever I wanted to play airplane I would take a moth and carefully trim off part of its wings with scissors and set it on the floor. The moth would need a long takeoff run to get airborne and then circle slowly around the room just like a real airplane..

In the midwest we didn't have A/C in the schools, so in early fall and late spring they would have the windows open, so of course flys would get in and we found that if you were really quick you could catch a fly, and then get a long haired girl to donate a strand of hair, we would tie a loop and get it around the fly's neck or there abouts and have a fly on a leash. They would fly all around, up down sideways, and then get tired and just hang, then start all over again. great fun for all...
Kids today have no imagination, we used to have so much fun before cable TV and computers..

And we grew up just fine..

SO FAR, THE D O HAVE HIS THREAD CONTRIBUTORS PROVE TO THE COURT ORLD WE ARE FICKIN WOLVERWIEEEENIES ???!!!

(and pass the pain pills, DANG IT !!!)

fj

A friend of mine can catch the marsh flies/horse flies and pulls their wings off then lets them go....

Then they aren't a 'fly' any more....





they are a 'walk'

If they walk, it just takes them longer to get to the next piece of poo.

If you just pull one wing off, they just buzz around in circles really fast.... like paddling a kayak on one side really quickly...

Hey Muz it's kinda like doing a belly flop off the swimming pool diving board compared to doing a belly flop from 100 feet up.
I'll bet that if that horsefly met a car windshield head on at 60 mph hour you would be able to see what he had for lunch.

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Most fun of all was catching house flies , clip their wings (Leave some wing on) , then go find a spider web and drop the fly on it

When the fly stars buzzing it excites the spider and he will come out of his hole and stab the fly and drag him away.

Most fun you can have in a farmhouse and it cost nothing .

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When moms canning sealer was empty (all the moths used up) , me and my brother would blow a fart into the jar , put the lid on and go to our sisters and say "smell this".

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I know you guys are dying to try the moth-airplane trick so here is some training from an expert . I became a moth CFI at 10 years of age

Moths typically flutter around in a erratic unstable manner because they have too much wing for their weight.

So the trick is to use scissors and clip just the right amount of wing so they can barely fly , and it will be a nice straight and level flight.

But the best trick of all is to trim one wing slightly more than the other so it flies circuits around the room.

The hard part is explaining to your wife why you are bringing moths into the living room , and why you need the scissors from her sewing basket..


...... just tell them you have been hanging with that arnie guy too long.

Some would call all yall sick bastages. I call you my friends.... you make me feel normal

God made the Fly .
Man made the Aircraft .

God help us if HE made Arnie & Muz's brains !!!!

fj

I think he put some tools in a blender , turned the switch on , and walked away.

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Comic relief? God also has a little humor too