Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The ‘barbaric’ tradition of throwing live turkeys from planes

My thoughts exactly.....

Not only did I love that show, but especially that episode...

and I never tire of seeing 1980s Jan Smithers....NEVER

Whoops, late on that joke. Didn't see Sitka's joke.

"as god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly". Best WKRP ever!

The turkeys can glide down just fine. Something about it being in their DNA. This takes place about 20 miles from my front door. Wife's hometown. I mainly enjoy seeing PETA get their panties in a wad.

Also they don't nosedive into the pavement. People can be seen carrying the birds around for the rest of the day and they all look fine and dandy.

As a 5 Y.O. kid, my mother took me to see Santa Claus jump from a plane, with a parachute, it didn't open.

Turkeys are better equipped than Santa was.

I've heard throwing Vietnamese out was a right good time.

They only had to throw one out to get the rest talking.

I wonder if people remember a "Turkey Shoot"?

well they certainly can fly around here, the wild ones...

a week or so again, I had about 40 up a real tall pine in my back yard..... probably a good 50 to 60 feet off the ground...

they do that to get away from the coyotes and cougars than run thru the local neighborhood.

Having ridden in one of those Cessnas, I'd be more worried about the plane and the people in it than I would be about the turkeys. Gotta be awkward in the confines of the cabin moving the birds around.

The times I went up a student of mine was flying, the instructor was also up-front and I was in back, so I dunno if the windows on the doors open enough to push a turkey out.

As far as the turkeys, yep the glide response is likely wired into their brains.

I've seen a young purple martin, still a bit too small and weak to fly, fall out of a high nest cavity in a stiff breeze. First time out of the nest, incapable of powered flight, yet the expert balancing into the wind, wings and tail in constant adjustment until it touched down called to mind the computerized fly by wire on an Airbus A320.

I'm familiar with the rotund free-range barred-rock chickens that used to climb the stairs to the tall hay loft in the barn on my sister's property to lay an egg. Yet coming down they would always go to the hay loft window, pause on the edge and look and look and look, and then launch themselves into space, fall straight down while flapping madly, and then crash-land.

I'd like to toss one of them out of a plane to see if they have a glide response too.

Birdwatcher

Chickens...from a hovering chopper a few thousand feet up...glide for a spell, get tired and make a small puff when they impact.

I personally wouldn't go to the effort and expense to toss a turkey from an airplane (you see how much avgas costs these days?), but I couldn't care less if someone else did.

Now if I just happened to be on a flight with turkeys on board that were due to be tossed........well, I'd probably have no problem participating in the activity.

Max Brantly is one of the most liberal people in Arkansas.

It will be no more traumatic than stuffing them in cages and hauling them several miles to the processing plant. Sometimes they stay on the truck, caged, in front of huge fans for hours, waiting their turn. Grocery store meat is not treated very well, no matter the kind. miles

the doc landed and gassed up his plane yesterday on our way back from hunting, av gas was 3:65 a gallon, not too bad i think.

More proof that here on the 'Fire we got experts on EVERYTHING

^

When I was teaching in western Nebraska, one of high school boys said that his dad and uncle got into an argument about whether a chicken would fly or crash after being thrown out of their plane. One got the Piper and the other caught a chicken. Went up about 1K and tossed the poor clucker out the window. Seems it buried itself about 2ft into the plowed wheat field. The kid said the impact zone wasn't hard to find as there were white feathers everywhere.

Had a buddy that had a four year old kid and every time the boy went outside to play the neighbor's guinea scared the kid. Well...the guinea wound up in a sack before daylight and was taken to the airport, put in a Piper Cub and taken to 5000' ASL and pitched out! TJ told be....I flipped the cub over in a split S and followed it down.....it would stick out it's 'wings' and rotate like onto a chopper...get tired and with folded wings drop like a rock....stick out it's wings...rotate...then like a rock again!! Never scared that kid again!!

I would think a turkey would do considerable damage when it lands on their double-wide.
Oh well, as long as it doesn't hit the still or the smoke shed.