Kudos to Foul

[Tide1]

I may have to recant my long standing opinion of pigeons being squab that got away. After seeing what was going on at the pigeon rasing semi-finals at New Forest. A gentlman farmer from Canterbury using 2 homeing pigeons and a southeast tailwind had them set off for home carrying a 1lb coconut. Unfortunately we'll have to wait for the results, later in the day the wind shifted to the west ( Flightyboy edged out The Wings of St. James by a beak to win by the way ).
I did not hear about the Barons unsavory behavior. Of course shaving, plucking, defeathering of any kind is forbidden in the 1785 version as put down in Chapter 10, Article 8, Paragraph 4.

Taking my factor of 4 and then dividing by 7, adding the number you first thought of should give you the answer to my question,

I still don't come up with the number I'm looking for even when I dived by 7. I would have to actually add 3 and multiply by 5. Please explain sir.

I didn't bring up The Mad Arabs results because of the fact that he used the thermal currents at the Straights of Gibralter them being by far stronger then the up drafts used by the Earl ;) But of course your right it all has to do with velocity of take off.