Bring it on! I’ll even take stormy… 
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Can you handle Mach .71 cruise though… 
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Cough…cough… is there a FA? How about catering? A man has to eat you know! At .71 I’m guessing we could squeeze in at least breakfast and lunch. 
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Don’t forget second breakfast and onesies!
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On the way back to my type rating for the longbow.
Haven’t shot in over a year. Quite inconsistent, even at my practice range of between 10 and 20 meters in my garden.
Starting with the weaker 25lbs and 35lbs bows (I have long arms so you have to add 5-7 lbs to get the poundage I am actually drawing), with the goal of finally shooting that medieval style 55lbs longbow that I bought last year before sh** started to go south and haven’t had the opportunity to shoot yet.
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*note to self: do not F@#% with @Aginor…
Dude that is seriously cool. I’d love to learn how to operate a bow.
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It might surprise you how easy it is. It sure did surprise me!
Spending some time with these things lately with all the social distancing going on.
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The target is rated for up to 70 pounds, but then… that was when it was new. In the meantime it has received some field repairs (its skin was basically gone and the fill material was both shredded and starting to fall out, so I added some newspapers inside and duct tape to repair the skin).
If I was shooting with a compound bow, even a “weak” one with poundage similar to my longbows, then those carbon arrows (they have a smaller diameter) would go right through and indeed damage the shed’s wall and/or break on impact. The bigger wooden longbow arrows dont penetrate as well.
For longer distances (over 20m/yards) the target is still OK, I just have to stop using it for the shorter ones eventually. Especially once I start shooting the stronger bow.
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A collague of mine has a hunting bow. I don’t know the specifics…but it is for deer hunting and he loves his high tech stuff, so I’m going to take a wild guess that his bow will pack a reasonable punch.
Anyway, he has a little mini-range set up in his backyard with a fence behind the target etc. so stray arrows don’t go to the neighbor’s wall.
A couple of years ago, he bought a new fancy release for the bow. He was stuck in Auckland for a few weeks so of course he had to try out the new release in his backyard. So he nocks the arrow, draws the bow and is preparing to aim…
THWACK
The fancy release was a bit more sensitive than my friend anticipated and he must have been adjusting his stance at the time, with the bow pointing slightly up. The arrow went over the target, over his fence and buried itself deep into the neighbours’ weatherboard wall. Oops.
He gingerly waited for any noise from inside the house - luckily none came, the neighbours weren’t home.
He ran to his garage, got the ladder out and leaned it on the property fence reached over and was just able to grab the end of the arrow. He pulled…and nothing happened. He pulled again…and successfully retrieved his arrow.
Except for the head, which was still firmly stuck to the side of the house. At this point, he heard the neighbours car pull over to their driveway, so he quickly fled.
Rather than revealing the existence of his, ah, unofficial, shooting range to his neighbours, he didn’t say anything. This was a couple of years ago and last I asked, that arrowhead is still there. 
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This sounds like a bad idea to me. 
If you can see any part of any civilization behind or beyond your “shooting fence”, you really shouldn’t be doing that there. That’s why most outdoor shooting ranges have a huge berm behind them.
Oh I agree! I found funny because nobody got hurt…but you’re absolutely right. A bow like that is basically a firearm in terms of lethality.
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It started at 16 ton. Then they added an extended boom, bigger counterweight and a mud pack so its about 25ton now. Plus the diesel bowser, a grab and a set of forks and I think I’m at 52tons gross weight as my trailer is ridiculously heavy lol
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If he goes hunting with it and it is a modern bow then we are probably looking at a compound bow with a draw weight of 70-90lbs.
(Which isn’t as bad to draw as it sounds, once you pass the let-off you only have to hold 15-25lbs thanks to the pulleys)
Those have an amazing arrow speed and good penetration. They often go straight through a deer without even slowing down visibly.
In fact that’s the reason I don’t have one of those despite them being cool as hell. I usually shoot in my garden and many of those standard archery targets explicitly say on their packaging that you should not shoot at them with compound bows because they won’t reliably stop those arrows.
And talking about a backstop: that’s why my little garden training range is limited to around 20m of distance. My garden is a lot bigger but in all directions there are neighbors’ houses or property, so when I miss by more than a meter or so (that rarely happens, but it can happen) I could hit basically anything.
Even weak bows often have a range in excess of 50m and that arrow flies stabilized so it can still penetrate something.
So that’s why I am shooting into the direction of my own house/shed. If I miss then I hit my own stuff.
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It’s been nearly 60 days since our flight department shutdown. Thankfully the company as a whole is still very strong despite the economic downturn. Got to fire up the bird and run it through its paces on the ground. No flying, but better than nothing. Wow… was I a little rusty. Lol . My DCS, VTOL VR, and BMS muscle memory was fighting my King Air muscle memory. It all came back though.
I’ll be doing this every Tuesday until things normalize. Probably go fly at the end of the month to swing the gear per Beechcraft recommendations and get current/proficient.
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