Better than Top Gun

Howdy, friends. Call me "Papa Hans." Everyone else does where I live. I have a 2,000 acre corn farm in Barron, Wisconsin, near Oshkosh where the famous air show is held every summer.

Next one will be July 27-August 3. The pilots put on some spectacular flying demonstrations and simulated "warbird" dogfights - but nothing I've ever seen in Oshkosh or in real aerial combat can match what I saw in my corn field recently.

I flew F-16 fighter jets in the first Gulf War so I know something about combat aviation.

I had gone out to finish a field for planting when a huge golden eagle - he had at least a six foot wingspan - flew right in front of my tractor. It was being chased by three crows that were continually dive bombing it and pecking at it. The crows do this because the eagles rob their nests when they find them.

At any rate, the eagle banked hard right in one evasive maneuver, then landed in the field about 100 feet from me in the tractor. This eagle stood about 3 feet tall. The crows all landed too and took up positions around the eagle, but kept their distance at about 20 feet from the big bird. The eagle would take a couple steps towards one of the crows and they'd hop backwards and forward to keep their distance.

Then the reinforcements showed up. I happened to spot the eagle's mate hurtling down out of the sky at what appeared to be approximately Mach 1.5. Just before impact the eagle on the ground took flight, and the three crows which were watching the grounded eagle, also took flight thinking they were going to get in some more pecking on the big bird.

The first crow being targeted by the diving eagle never stood a snowball's chance in hell. There was a mid-air explosion of black feathers and that crow was done.

The diving eagle then banked hard left in what had to be a 9G climbing turn, using the energy it had accumulated in the dive, and hit crow #2 less than two seconds later. Another crow dead.

The grounded eagle, which was now airborne and had an altitude advantage on the remaining crow - which was streaking eastward in full burner - made a short dive then banked hard right when the escaping crow tried to evade the hit. It didn't work - crow #3 bit the dust at about 20 feet altitude.

The two eagles ripped the crows apart and ate them on the ground, and as I got closer and closer working my way across the field, I passed within 20 feet of one of them as it ate its catch. It stopped and looked at me as I went by and you could see in the look of that bird that it knew who's Boss Of The Sky.

These avian aviators could sure teach the Top Gun flyboys about how to do dogfights. And the frosting on the cake: Not only did they kill their enemies, they ate them.