I live in Kansas, and I’m blessed with many species of hawks. I see them throughout the year. As I go to our usual places around the county, I watch for them. They are very territorial and I can see them in usually the same places or areas along the highway each day as I pass. They are very majestic, much smaller than an eagle, but master of the bird world here. Some are called falcons and I think all are part of the raptor family. I love these birds. My bucket list has befriending a falcon as a goal. I don’t want to own one, just befriend him. I’m not sure you could own anything as nice as a falcon. I’m afraid becoming a hawk’s friend might be very hard.

All of my life I have noticed them and watched their habits. When we were young, my brother and I once came across a nest of small sparrow hawks in a tree while we were squirrel hunting. It crossed our minds to capture them and train them to hunt as falconers do. But it just didn’t seem right and we didn’t know how to do it anyway. We let them be.

This is the story that I have told to at least two other of my grandchildren and since E is now talking to hawks, I will take time to tell E the hawk story the next time we are alone. It happened about 20 years ago near Dodge City, Kansas. Yes the same city as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Boot Hill and the Long Branch Saloon. Although those men and places have nothing to do with my story. We just happened to live there for a while, about 8 years of “for a while”.

I was learning to fly. My instructor was a kid named John Fleishman. He was about 15 years younger than I but had every pilot rating available at the time except hot air balloon and I’ve got to tell you I enjoyed every hour we flew together. That was at Dodge City Regional Airport, known for the highest average winds of any airport in the U.S. A great place to learn. If you couldn’t handle high crosswinds and turbulence you didn’t fly much in Dodge City.

John and I were out flying one afternoon and he was putting me through the paces of what we call “slow flight”. It’s one of the requirements to getting your License. The drill is to head the plane into the wind to keep the engine cool and slow your ground speed. You must raise the nose of the plane slowly to reduce air speed, reduce power but maintain altitude and slowly lower the flaps to reach a speed just above stall speed. Maintain that air speed within a few knots and altitude within 50 feet. Stall speed is where the plane will quit flying and the nose will drop straight down and you are looking straight down to the ground. As you head down you give the engine full power, gently pull the yoke back, your speed picks up and the plane recovers from the stall and you begin to fly again back to level flight. It’s really a lot of fun but it’s pretty unnerving the first few times you learn it. While doing “slow flight” one knot above stall speed and maintaining exactly at altitude is perfect and that’s what you’re shooting for. You fail if you stall. If I remember right, stall speed was 43 knots in the 152 Cessna I was training in. That’s about 49 mph. At about 54 mph a stall warning buzzer goes off and remains on throughout the whole exercise. Which adds a bit of excitement also.

So John and I are at about 2000′ above ground level. I have stabilized the plane at exactly 44 kts. and straight into the wind. My power is maintaining perfect altitude. At that height the headwind was about 25 kts. So we are cruising along at about 19 kts or  22 mph ground speed. You look down to the ground and it’s like you are hoovering. Not only are cars and trucks passing you but bicycles and horses are giving you a run for your money. Of course the stall warning buzzer is going off. It’s really great fun. Each time you do it you find it hard to believe you can fly that slow in reference to the ground. But that day in Dodge City it was easy because of the headwinds.

We are flying along very slowly and I take my eyes off of the gauges long enough to look ahead. A few hundred feet off of my left nose I see a hawk flying along the same altitude and direction as we are going. We are gaining on the hawk. He is the only thing we are outrunning. His ground speed was probably a whooping 12 MPH. John and I both see the bird, look at each other but say nothing. As we approach it from the rear the hawk continues unconcerned and we pull up beside him about 75 foot off on my left wing. When we get even with each other, the hawk swivels his head and looks straight at us with a look that says “what in the hell are you doing up here?”. At the exact time that he looks at us we both say “Hello Hawk!” and begin to laugh over the intercom. It was a beautiful day to fly, we were doing an excellent exercise, 2000′ in the air and we were talking to a hawk. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Since then, whenever I’m driving and I see a hawk flying or just perched looking for mice, I give him a greeting out loud, ”Hello Hawk!”, because I have flown with them. And some days when the air is clear, he turns and looks at me, I think he can hear me. My granddaughter thinks so, too.

Such is the life of John