It was in about 1985, I think, landing at Redmond OR at night. Hundreds of jack rabbits on the runway started running away when the pilot turned the landing light on.

rw2 wrote:I just want to say that reading this has made me appreciate deer. At least they are terrified of airplanes.

Not always. This guy didn't even bat an eye. I had to add a little power to land just past him, he never budged.

We had a coyote hanging out on the strip a few years back that was getting pretty bold. One evening he was hanging out on the strip giving me the stink eye as I taxied out in the Champ. I decided to teach him a lesson but as I chased him over to the edge of the runway he turned around and squared off with the plane . Had to resort to more persuasive methods, but I have to admit we weren't dodging as many jack rabbits while he was around, and he was more predictable and much easier to spot.

Dale Moul wrote:... a plane wanted to land on the runway, there were about 15 people walking on it at the time so he buzzed the runway at about 50 feet. Everyone moved off the runway except 1 person who flipped him off and stayed in the center of the strip.....

Reminded me of one time flying up to Skykomish State airport in western Washington.
The grass runway had people all over it, I don't generally "buzz" but figured they'd get the message if I did a low circle overhead.
It took several orbits but finally they all (reluctantly) moved off the runway.
After landing, I found out that the live-in airport manager had set up a little chip-and-putt golf course on the grass,
and that I was trying to land in the middle of a fire dept benefit tournament.

rw2 wrote:I just want to say that reading this has made me appreciate deer. At least they are terrified of airplanes.

They might be terrified but that doesn't seem to stop them from running right at them.
Had that happen before, once was a pretty close call.
They run into cars pretty regularly around here too.

I had a similar experience to CFOT's, a coyote on the taxiway walked over to the grass & stopped to watch me go by..
It seemed quite surprised when I taxied off into the grass right after it, it finally ran off.
Coyotes are survivors, and pretty smart (there's a reason thaty cartoon character is named Wiley Coyote),
I don't usually worry to much about them.

Lots of bald eagles around here, they can be a hazard esp during haying season.
They like to eat the mice snakes etc that get jumped up.
Had a number of closer-than-I-like calls with them overhead KOKH.

rw2 wrote:I just want to say that reading this has made me appreciate deer. At least they are terrified of airplanes.

Yeah, but it doesn't seem to stop them from running out onto the runway. I have a buddy who hit one with a Commander 114 when it ran right out in front of him just as he flared. Did well over $60K damage to the airplane. Deer didn't look so good afterward, either. (Largest piece they found was a fairly intact hindquarter.) So far, I've been lucky enough to see them in the distance, and able to chase them away before landing.

Nobody posted the picture of the Giraffe with broken neck with crumpled Cessna close by.
Its a classic

Many years ago, on an island far away, there was an air taxi operator who’d been working that part of the world for decades, and no competition. Of course, got all the school districts business, which was substantial.

A new school district superintendent moved in, and it happens that he owned an airplane...Beech Baron to be specific. Well, he applied for a got a single pilot Air taxi certificate, and promptly took all the school district business away from the old timer.

A few months later, said superintendent was on takeoff from their home Airport, and a Saint Bernard ran out in front of the Baron. He was struck by the right prop, which sliced him cleanly in half, after which the front half went aft and collapsed the right main gear. The back half of the dog was slung under the plane by the right prop, hit the left prop, and went aft to collapse the left main gear.

The Baron was a total, but fortunately, other than the dog, nobody got hurt.

A week or so after the incident, I ran into the old time Air taxi pilot, and noted that I’d heard his competition had had a bit of bad luck.

His response: “Do you have any idea how hard it is to train a Kamikaze dog?”

You can’t make this stuff up.

MTV

mtv wrote:Many years ago, on an island far away, there was an air taxi operator who’d been working that part of the world for decades, and no competition. Of course, got all the school districts business, which was substantial.

A new school district superintendent moved in, and it happens that he owned an airplane...Beech Baron to be specific. Well, he applied for a got a single pilot Air taxi certificate, and promptly took all the school district business away from the old timer.

A few months later, said superintendent was on takeoff from their home Airport, and a Saint Bernard ran out in front of the Baron. He was struck by the right prop, which sliced him cleanly in half, after which the front half went aft and collapsed the right main gear. The back half of the dog was slung under the plane by the right prop, hit the left prop, and went aft to collapse the left main gear.

The Baron was a total, but fortunately, other than the dog, nobody got hurt.

A week or so after the incident, I ran into the old time Air taxi pilot, and noted that I’d heard his competition had had a bit of bad luck.

His response: “Do you have any idea how hard it is to train a Kamikaze dog?”

You can’t make this stuff up.

MTV

That is truly an awful story! Can't top it--wouldn't want to, but as they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Cary

Once an unknown individual dragged a small-ish log onto one of our local backcountry airstrips, using a 4WD. We could see the tire tracks and draft marks. Presumably to stop aircraft landing... Fortunately it's a long enough airstrip that someone simply landing past the log and moved it off to the side.

The place is a popular hunting stop-off for 4WD and aircraft people alike. We in NZ have no laws on hunting the day you fly in. One might assume it was someone wanting to make access more exclusive, but who knows for sure.

Other more mundane backcountry "runway" obstructions which I have seen first hand:

- Hikers camping on the airstrip, built a stone fireplace too - just to show they had no idea what they were camping upon.
- Creek adjusting course after a flood and cutting the airstrip in two, not very exciting but does ruin an airstrip, sometimes permanently.
- Other aircraft tied down in the middle of the vector. Whether this is just thoughtlessness, or a way of keeping other visitors out, I am not sure.
- Driftwood / strand wash from a king tide.
- Heavy machinery parked on the airstrip, again - heedlessly?

Once we landed at a small public airstrip next to a small settlement. There were white tires making X's to indicate debris on the runway in several places down the length, after recent flooding. It wasn't clear whether the runway was closed or not. The X's didn't obstruct the whole vector's width. There was enough room to land beside the X's, so we did. That is fairly common around here, closing half a runway only.

After we had finished our visit, we prepared the plane to depart. This was about an hour later. At that time, a local resident appeared on an ATV and started onto the airstrip. He began moving the tire X's further into the runway - it appeared he intended to totally block the vector. We wondered if we had upset someone by our landing, and were thus being prevented from taking off. Or maybe he was preventing others from landing. We had places to be, no time for confrontation, and didn't want to find out.

We quickly started up and back-tracked to make our intentions clear. The resident took no notice whatsoever other than a vacant hand-raising salute toward us as we taxied past. We took that as good enough acknowledgement and proceeded to roll. The guy hadn't quit his tire-shifting task and we had to wait until he walked off to collect the next tire, so he was out of the way.

There was literally *just* enough room between the re-positioned tires to fit the undercarriage. That far into the T/O roll we were doing 45kts (not my plane and I was not flying) and it was an exercise in precision flying(?) to get through. His ATV went right under the wing tip, but he didn't watch or even look up, just went about his task.
It was kinda creepy.

We circled once overhead to see what he was doing, and it did appear that he was in fact closing off the airport entirely. Probably for the purpose of maintenance I suppose.

Not backcountry, but every year at JFK in New York, we get several flights that are delayed due to migrating Diamondback Terrapin Turtles crossing the runways. It's always funny to make the announcement that our widebody jet with a couple hundred passengers bound for Europe is being delayed by a handful of randy turtles. If the numbers are great enough, they get airport service vehicles to pick them up and help them across faster.

It seems the cattle (and the wife's horses) have determined that the 1/2 acre ranch airstrip has the only grass on the entire place. Usually a low flyby will clear the critters but the calves think its a game. They'll come right back and poise for another pass. Try doing multiple passes trying to clear the airstrip while flight school aircraft are flying low overhead (we're in between two airports with flight schools that traverse directly overhead all day long...).

Here it is. Sorry I don't know how to add the picture.

I've had the cows at Smith Prairie before, as well as a golf cart driving down the runway at Emmett (sits in the middle of a golf course.)

Ive had an endless amount of kangaroos Ive had to dodge, on one occasion Ive failed to miss them. Ive had emus, horses, cattle, sheep and water bufflo. but the best one was watching a car turn onto and come down the runway as I was going down it. turned out to be Japanese tourists who thought they were turning onto a main road......

Musk oxen along the runway at Nome. Brown bear on the runway at Anvik and black bear at Kake. Eagles soaring off the end of the runway at Kake. Caribou on the runway at St. Michael. Moose on the runway at Shageluk. Joggers on the runway at Tuntutuliak. Four wheelers on lots of runways, especially if the runway lies between the village and the dump. No kamikaze dogs, though.

Fork lifts and drunk cannery workers at Excursion inlet, Coyotes here at home, a dead Cessna at Northway, and worms in Juneau. Honest to god at certain times they get so many earthworms on the runway that they pick them up with a street sweeper vac truck. Ever see a pile of about three tons of dead worms? ICKY

Two summers ago while flying fire patrol I set up to land at Enterprise, Oregon (8S4). The 2850’ runway is adequate for a C182, but summer temps can generate DA of over 6,000 feet so there's none of that "land in the first third" stuff. Anyhow, I flew a tight down wind — runway looked clear with no new cows or other obstacles added since my departure a couple hours previous. So I turned base, then final for my 'onstacle free' runway. I aimed for 200 feet past the numbers so a little float would put the wheels down with alot of runway to spare. As I rounded out to flare I caught a glimpse of woman ducking low as she & dog ran from beneath my right wing. She was either dead on the runway or on the rough breathing heavily and reflecting on her good fortune by the time I realized what happened ... and the wheels were on the ground anyhow so I continued the rollout. After we cleared the runway I confirmed no new dents in the skin. She survive, and so did we. About then the guy in the right seat kinda casually mentioned the runway is a favorite dog walk for nearby residents... and that the pilot of a C206 spotted a group of dog walkers who ignore the first, then second low pass before (reluctantly) stepping to the side. The near-death exprience didn't phase her much. I spotted her & dog later that day as I took off. She waved. I'm glad she didn't hold a grudge, and I'm REALLY glad for my high wing Cessna. Dunno. The outcome of our first engounter might have been grim if I'd landing a low wing plane.

Whitetail deer on a West Texas night landing.

A number of years ago, I was ferrying a floatplane from FAI to Anchorage....Lake Hood. Weather was iffy early, so I didn’t get started till late afternoon, thus arriving LHD in the evening. I contacted ANC Approach 25 North for LHD and at the boathull I was told to contact Hood Tower. As I came up LHD, one of The Air taxi Beavers, having just landed west told the tower “Hood Tower, Red xx, is clearing the west channel, and be advised there’s a pig in the channel.”

That got my attention, and as I was trying to process, Hood Tower replied (rather casually, in my opinion) “Roger, the pig in the channel. Can you describe the pig?”

Almost immediately, a female voice came on the frequency and announced: “The pig looked just like my former husband.”

That pretty much wrapped up that exchange, after which I was cleared to land west, “And be advised, there’s a pig in the channel.”. I landed, and sure enough, there was Airport Security in a boat, herding a rather large pig onto Gull Island, which separates the landing/takeoff channel from the slow taxi channel at the LHD SPB.

I spent the night wondering what the hey that was all about. In the AM, I learned from our maintenance guys that the numbers of nesting gulls, ducks and geese on Gull Island had finally got the attention of Airport authorities (LHD is immediately adjacent Anchorage International) and the solution was to release three weaner pigs on Gull Island in the spring.

Those guys became cholesterol bombs as they scarfed up all those bird eggs. But, mid summer could get a little warm, and sometimes the little guys would opt to crawl the electric fence surrounding the island and go for a nice relaxing swim....in the seaplane base.

At which point, pilots were asked to report and describe the pig, so Airport Security would know which pig they were looking for. I’ve forgot who was who, but the very distinctively colored pigs were known as.....yes, you guessed it: Curly, Moe and Larry......You can’t make this stuff up.

MTV