Back in mid-December during the little "cold" weather we had on the west side, took the girlfriend up for a trip around SW WA. I was feeling cheap and rented the mighty C150 instead of the usual Pacer. We flew Kelso - Astoria - Willapa Harbor - Kelso. Decided to do stop at Toledo and do a few touch and go's before returing to Kelso.... There is alot of neat planes tied up there including a turbine otter on floats and a Beech Twin 18.

On the second touch and go at about 50ft AGL all of a sudden I heard a load thump, the girlfried said $hit! and suddenly there was "red mist" on the windshield. Aborted the takeoff and shut things down to inspect the damage. Took one crow through the prop, with half a crow stuck in the cowl with a fair amount of now frozen blood on the right wing and windshield, took a second crow off the right wing cracking the nav light and plastic wing tip. No visible damage to the prop or leading edge of the wing. 1 1/2 dead crows on the runway with some red asphalt.... Never liked crows anyway

My bird strike was pretty low key. Any of you folks out there have any good stories or involving dead birds? I usually fly a fabric Pacer and have had a few close calls with geese. Does aluminum aircraft really offer much more protection from birds then fabric I know the owner of the FBO in kelso took several geese into his rear stabilizer on his 182 landing at a grass airstrip in Battle Ground. His plane did not win.......

Matt

Posing with the carnage....



Planes at Toledo:

Its an entertaining scenario, but not fun to experience. There are several threads on bird strikes posted on BCP back a while. Makes for real good READING.