Backcountry Pilot • Bush Planes and Birdstrikes!

Bush Planes and Birdstrikes!

Near misses, close calls, and lessons learned the hard way. Share with others so that they might avoid the same mistakes.
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:34 pm

Bush Planes and Birdstrikes!

Just interested in hearing any fist hand accounts of birdstrikes and or damages. It something that is a hazard to everyone regardless of the Ops area.
Many pilots were exchanging stories while standing around the coffee pot and watching (Fox) news these past few days. I am always looking for turkey buzzards and ospreys that commonly are seen when flying here in SC. The last thing i want is a bird, even a sparrow whacking me in the face coming through the thin plexi windscreen. I have also heard hangar flying stories about leading edge damage and flying back to find the bird still in the hole!

I thought I'd also include a picture grabbed from the net. i have a similar picture thats not scanned. We were testing how to best protect the landing gear doors from abrasion and other things, while landing at Bicycle
Lake AAF, drylake bed near the Edwards range in California. Some Where around 1999. As a former Crewchief, i have seen my share of stinky, messy birdstrikes! Yuck!
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lownslow79 offline
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 5:06 pm

Had a bird 2-weeks ago hit dead center in the middle of the nose of the helicopter. For anyone familiar with the Wire-strike protection system, there is is a V-shaped blade on the front to cut a wire if you encounter it. I got the bird right in the center of that and sent it in two different directions over the top of the fuselage.

Your picture of bike lake gives me the shakes. 0% illumination brownout landings there in the moon dust does not bring back good memories. Either does the 112 degree heat.

Brett
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:19 pm

A local guy hit a goose with a 205. Leading edge strike. Dent was 24" wide and went in about 18 " Expencive.

Tim
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:09 pm

One of my customers hit a turkey vulture on right side of the windshield near Flagstaff while bringing his new M8 back from the factory. The right windshield crossbrace was bent, the top of the glareshield squashed down and the panel buckled.
The bird ended up in the back and remains were subsequently weighed at nearly 14lbs and the head and one wing were missing, having been removed by the prop.
Lucky for Mitch it hit the right side or would have killed him.
If you meet a bird, go up as birds tend to go down I've been told.
Last summer a bird came through the right side of the windshield on a C150 and wacked the instructor on the head drawing blood while he and his student were on final. Somehow they landed safely.
If you 've seen that picture circulating last year of a goose strike that opened up the roof of a Bonanza you will note that it also was on the right.
Could it have something to do with the prop??
Jeremy
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:32 pm

:o
Thats scary! I mean really, I think its more of a threat than other aircraft traffic.
There have been numerous times I have flown close to or around lazy birds that wait until the last min to scatter. lets hope the rightside therory is right!
lownslow79 offline
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:19 pm

Had a bird strike with the C170B. It was while landing at St Francis KS. It hit the leading edge right at the strut. Just saw a flash, heard a big bang, and landed. No damage but you could tell where it hit because it took all of the dead bugs off the leading edge.
HC
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:22 pm

I am always aware of hawks. They don't seem to move when you approach. I have had to dodge them, they just look at you like " I was there first". Getting close to geese, they have lways dove down out of the way.
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Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:56 pm

RV pilot hit a turkey buzzard on final, went through the RIGHT half of the windscreen, hitting his girlfriend in the face. Didn't kill her but it really rung her bell and left some good scratches on her face.

Heard another store (urban legend maybe) of a guy flying a Grumman and hit a turkey buzzard on downwind. He called a mayday to the tower and was given expedited landing. As he was on final the stunned vulture woke up and was pissed. It started trying to get out of the cockpit, flapping and screeching and vomiting all over the place. The tower then thought he experienced some sort of control problem and had the fire trucks meet the plane when he landed. He bailed out like the cockpit was on fire too. Heck of a guy to be able to land a plane in one piece with an angry buzzard flapping around.

That's an old story and has been around so old-timers, if I've messed up the details feel free to correct me.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:03 am

Watch out for bald eagles. I guess since they're our national bird, they figure they own the whole sky. They do NOT try to avoid aircraft, hell, they act like they don't even see ya. Scary, they're big birds- hitting one would ruin your whole day.

Eric
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:07 am

Just curious to know if any of the float guys here have had a fish jump outta the water at the worst possible moment and hit your plane?
Seems as if we all know animals on the runway and bird strikes but I have never heard of things from under the water causing damage :?:
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:12 am

This is a real story. A friend just finished building a Christen Eagle and he and his wife flew it to Sun & Fun.

On final with the stress and heat, he cracked open the canopy about 4 inches.

On short final with airplanes every where, a buzzard goes through his prop and wraps itself around the wind screen. Chopped up pieces cover his wife with feathers, guts, and dead stuff pieces.

He is blind, but gets it down. The "parkers" on their scooters wouldn't get near him. He had to pull it off himself to get to parking. And there was his wife, going to her first SnF fly-in in 90 degree temps and no easy place to clean up near by.
Last edited by patrol guy on Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:15 am

Buddy had a Beachcraft Muskatear that a bunch of yellow jackets took up residency in. Got in through the outside air port. He did not find out about it tell on take off about 10 feet AGL. Very short flight by the way. He egressed as if it were on fire.

You know that yellow jackets do not loose their stingers when they sting. they can rappid fire.

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Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:22 am

Here's a story and some pics of a local pilot that had a run in with a cormorant.

Dean

There we were, In a 1954 Cessna 180, 1500’ eastbound over the second narrows bridge in Vancouver, just clearing the Harbour control zone. We were on our way back from a nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach at Gilles Bay, Texada Island with some friends. Suddenly I noticed a seabird ahead. It was a cormorant. A sea bird normally found on or under the water or flying low. I said to Pauline my wife, “What’s a cormorant doing way up here?”

We were on converging courses, and he was slightly higher than us, so I descended slightly to increase the margin. He started to descend also, so I increased my rate of decent and yelled “Watch where you are going!”

With that he dove abruptly and we hit with a loud bang. The windshield was immediately covered almost 100% with the remains of the bird and his last meal. (Which I later found out to be herring) The cowl doors were blown open and damaged. I informed the Harbour tower of my situation and told him I would divert to Pitt Meadows airport since it was slightly closer than Langley, and had wider and longer runways more suitable for a blind landing. He gave them a call to give them a heads up and shortly I switched to them and headed directly towards Pitt Meadows. They asked if I needed any emergency services and I said “Not likely, but let’s see how the landing turns out.” I was cleared straight in but couldn’t see ahead so requested and was granted an angled approach so I could see out the lower corner of the windshield for the approach. I descended to just over the threshold and then straightened it out, and then completed the landing using my peripheral vision on the sides of the runway only. It wasn’t too difficult actually. My time flying the Tiger Moth at the museum was a benefit since you fly that from the rear seat with your passenger and engine ahead.

Anyway, I have a bit of work to do fix the upper cowl again. We just finished a major restoration of this airplane last spring.

Enjoy the photos attached, and keep an eye out for those suicidal birds!



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Dean offline
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:49 am

I have never hit a bird, but know of a couple of others that have. The latest one that made the headlines was a RV-4. He hit a bird on final and it broke his wood prop, tried to go around but the airplane stalled and piled in just past the end of the runway. 2 guys on board and one was in the hospital for a while, luckily they both survived to fly another day. That is the worst bird strick that I know of, there have been a couple of others, but they all were minor in comparison.

I also know of a guy that hit a fawn on takeoff with his 140 Cessna. He started his takeoff run when a Doe and fawn ran across the runway. Too late to stop so he tried to hop over the two. Would have made it over but the fawn jumped up right into the prop cutting the pour thing in two and spreading blood all over the belly of the airplane. Quite the mess.

I am always self conscious about animals at our runway. We have probably around 70 deer takeing residence on and around the field with an equal number or more of wild turkey. I have seen several guys abort their takeoff or landing due to either of them running on to the runway. We also had 40 head of elk sit on the end of the strip for about a week once. Haven't seem them in a while though.

Brian.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:09 am

One of the local guys kept his P-51 Mustang in our hangar for about a year after a total restoration. Hit a turkey buzzard on the left wing where the gun barrels come out. Really dented it up and it still stunk a year later.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:11 am

Down at my 500 foot level, I see lots of birds. I never learned this in my training, but my brother , a F15 guy was told to always pull up with bird encounters. I have done that a lot, and the birds, if they do anything, they dive.

I enjoy watching them pull in a wing and do a wing over. I have passed by bald eagles going opposite directions, and we both just turn over heads looking at each other.

Once I had a red tail hawk come toward me. I didn't have time to pull up.
That hawk pulled to vertical and threw it's claws out, wings extended. It went just under my wing by inches, claws extended, and inverted. I don't know if the airplanes turbulence inverted it, or what, but that was close.

knocking on wood,
patrol guy
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:20 am

Hard to beat this story......

http://www.airwaysmag.com/channels.html?article_id=78&channel_id=7
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:20 pm

For nearly 20 years I worked seaplanes in and around some of the best waterfowl habitat in the world, routinely landing amongst flocks of waterfowl, and flying around them all the time. Before that, I conducted eagle nest surveys each spring on Kodiak Island for a number of years. Eagles around their nests get a little territorial.

I always tried hard to stay above the birds if at all possible. I also always tried NOT to maneuver if possible around the birds--I let THEM do the maneuvering, and that always worked for me.

I once hit a pigeon with the prop on a 182RG (brand new), resulting in pigeon guts and feathers all down one side. Owner wasn't happy, pigeon was less happy.

Closest I've come to hitting a "serious" bird was a bald eagle who came up from below, flying right at me, obvious with evil intent, during the nesting season. When he realized how big the plane was, he changed his mind, and tucked and dove. When he did that, he went between the cockpit and the jury struts of the Super Cub. That put him within an inch or two of the prop arc, and a couple inches of the jury struts. His eyes were huge, and he's probably still telling all the other eagles how big the eyes on that pilot were.

A number of years ago, a T-34 at Pensacola was flying in one of their practice areas, and they hit a turkey vulture, which took out the canopy, and made a mess of the student pilot in the front seat, who was knocked unconcious. The instructor, in the back, got out and walked. Subsequently, the pre-solo student woke up, wiped the buzzard guts off his face, turned around and discovered that he was now on a solo flight. He flew the airplane back to base, or one of the aux fields, and landed safely.

I would NOT have wanted to be that instructor. He was a Marine, by the way. :wink:

MTV

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Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:58 pm

a few years back a cub driver was going into a ranch in a few miles south of here, circling to land on the road, lots of waterfowl in the area. She fell out of the sky short of the landing site rolled up in a ball and burned. they said the windshield was broken out before the crash, but the fire ate the other evidence.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:13 pm

goldfinch wrote:a few years back a cub driver was going into a ranch in a few miles south of here, circling to land on the road, lots of waterfowl in the area. She fell out of the sky short of the landing site rolled up in a ball and burned. they said the windshield was broken out before the crash, but the fire ate the other evidence.


Ohhh that don't sound good Chip :cry:

Was down at Polly Creek clam digging one spring with a couple other guys in their own planes. We were headed back up Cook inlet west side to ANC they were a head of me and chasing up the geese on the flats and I was having to dodge them. Had one go between the wing and strut :shock: Didn't have time to check his eyes but mine were huge I can tell u that. Decided to get some altitude to get away from the problem
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