Have hit and had my pilots hit lots of ducks in the takeoff canal during take off on Lake Hood in ANC Usually hit the prop with no problems besides cleaning blood and guts off the plane on return. have dented wing a few times and filed suit against the airport and they settled and repaired no questions asked

mtv wrote:
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.

MTV

That story has been around a while, appropriately embellished to make for a juicy urban myth.

A better, and completely true, birdstrike story happened to a skipper I had in the Harrier fleet. On a low level (420kts, 500ft) with a nugget (inexperienced new guy) on his wing, took a goose through the leading edge of his left wing. It penetrated the spar and the wing tank. That resulted in a massive fuel leak, loss of his primary hydraulics, and a rupture in the ductwork for the reaction controls. He debated pulling power back and trying to get on a bingo profile to make a divert, but at the rate he was losing fuel he elected instead to keep the power up and burn it faster than he was losing it. The kicker was he had to make a conventional landing (150+ kt final speed) without brakes, deflecting the nozzles to reduce the landing speed would have piped 400deg C hot air past the ruptured tank. Luck and skill prevailed and he got it safely stopped.

I have overtaken several eagles at altitude, and their startled reaction is consistent from one bird to the next and very interesting. While soaring peacefully along, as soon as they become aware of your airplane, they immediately tuck their wings and dive straight down.

This tells me to never attempt to fly underneath an eagle if at all possible.

Nizina

And now for the biggest birdstrike of all.
A Citabria had landed and was parking at Schelleville in CA some years back. A bird had escaped from the farm next to the airport and panicked and ran slap bang into the right side of Citabria. Got the leading edge, cowling and windscreen.
It was an Ostrich.

As an aside, glider pilots routinely fly the thermals following the birds.
Jeremy

And then there was the time when MTV and I were standing on the floatpond at Fairbanks behind a tail to beach floatplane.
A seagull flew by and landed on the bow of the right float.
There was a sound above and behind us which became a Bald Eagle in stoop mode. It bounced over the wing leading edge and managed to execute a hard turn, stop and go, with the seagull in its talons.
It landed on the far side of the floatpond and immediately consumed its prey as we watched.
Don't need blow up owls to keep birds off planes in Fbx with Bald Eagles.
Jeremy

2 "there I was's":

1) about 15 years ago, I was flying a glider (Blanik L-13) out of Wenatchee (EAT). I'd pretty much run out of the heavy-hitter thermals and was meandering back to the field. Off in the distance, I saw a red-tailed hawk. I eased up towards him (he was flying roughly the same direction.) As I'd get closer, he'd crank his wings back, and speed up. I was kind of formating on him, with him off my right wing, and crept in even closer. This continued for a while, and I was thinking: "Jeezy Petes! that F$#ker is going pretty fast!" Checked the A/S indicator - and he was doing 90-100kts. I eased in even closer, and got so he was inside the wingtip (those are LONG wings, though) and a little below. He'd only let me get so close, and then he'd roll inverted and get his talons out. That caused him to go really high drag, and "poof!", he'd disappear under the wing. I pitched around to the left, got him in sight again, and we did the same damn thing over again. We did it 2 or three more times, then I got so low that I had to go land.

There's nothing like getting that close to one of those things. I'd swear there was a grin on his face and a glint in his eye!

2) The second event was only a couple of years ago, in springtime. I was giving an old buddy a ride in my RV-4. We were flying out over North Bend, WA. He was flying from the back seat (he was a former USAF fighter pilot) and we were circling the cabin of a friend of his, in a right turn at about 140-150kts. We were ~1500 feet over the local terrain, about 800 feet over the cabin. For just a second, I looked over at the cabin, then looked back out over the nose (I'm kind of ashamed I didn't see this earlier...) When I looked forward, what did I see but an adolescent Bald Eagle, in full reverse (if you've ever seen this, you know what I mean, and you know why I nearly sh@t my pants!) It was INSIDE the propellor disk, and my memory puts him so close I could count the freakin' feathers. I rolled left, pulled hard (about 5.5 g's), and sucked the seat cushion up my rear end, waiting for the impact. It never came. Somehow we missed the thing. My buddy (a former aggressor from Texas, who talked slow, but thought fast) never saw the bird, but said he was thinking: "Either we've had a serious flight control problem, or we almost hit something and Tony took over. Either way, the next few seconds will be 'interesting'." Nothing happened - but that was due to luck and not skill. "Better lucky than good", I guess. But eyeballs looking at the ground don't help you avoid crap in the air, that's for sure.

--Tony

I was there for this one... We were in twilight formation heading back to Kotz. I had the f**kers thru the struts but nothing hit me, Wayne wasn't so lucky.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_ ... 002&akey=1

Gump

GerryJet,

The thing about birds (from gliders or paragliders), is they can flap! Bastards!

--Tony

Jeremy,

Thanks for the flashback....

MTV

Uh, Vick, that was from the official incident record. Embellished perhaps, but it apparently did happen.

MTV

Just had my mechanic hammer out some dents in the leading edges and do a little bondo work myself.
Seems like they've been getting worse lately. Luckily not many
I had to spray an aquatics job once. Bad idea. After I made the first pass I turned around and the whole sky was moving. The worst part was the different species took different altitudes to circle at so there wasn't really a "safe" altitude to spray at. Anyhow, I made it through three loads dodging and weaving until the last load I took a big one into the left leading edge. My airplane has even had the thick skin mod and reinforced nose ribs and it still pushed it back about a foot or so.
Earlier that year I took a seagull (yes, in interior Idaho....don't ask me) square into the center plate glass windshield. It didn't give but it spiderwebbed the whole thing, covered what area I might have been able to see out of with blood and took my windshield wiper with the piece that left. The other piece stayed attatched to my wiper motor shaft.
The only other strike of mention for me is when I flew the Beaver out of Pier 39 in San Fran. Short final with a typical strong onshore headwind just in the flare and one hit down at about 8 o'clock. Right through the prop. Three pieces. One over the top. one into the bottom of the cowling resting on the cylinder for better aroma and the last with all of the guts down the left side. Had to dock and spin it real quick to let them out the right!

A few years back, a military transport (141 maybe?) was taking off from Elmendorf AFB to the east when it hit some canadian geese...it crashed and burned....no survivors. My recollection is about 8 ppl died.

If I remember correctly , it was a tanker, KC-135 that sucked in those geese. Its tragic that this happend. I do know from expereince that the Airfield managers are busy all of the time trying to find solutions to birds and other wildlife in the airfield enviroment.

maules.com wrote: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

If this was the one in Woodland, CA that was N531M.....RIP the plane I learned to fly in and got my PPL!

AKGrouch and Lownslow,

Nope, you both missed it. It was an EC-121 AWACS airplane (modified Boeing 707), with 21 people aboard.

If the Air Force had not insisted on trying to make the areas alongside the runway look like a golf course, it never would have happened. They built great goose habitat right beside their runway.

That airplane lost the two left side engines, right after takeoff at MTOW, and had no hope of making it.

MTV

Another incident I remember, was I think, a JAL 747 loaded with cattle departed Fairbanks heavy with fuel and picked up birds in one engine.
It circled over the flats South of Fbx dumping fuel so it could return to land.
The many moose out there must've all sported slick hairdoes for a while.

piperpainter,
I would have to look up the reg. It was a 235hp IO540 M8 1993. There were only a handfull + one of M8's built

Jeremy

E-3 AWACS, Callsign Yukla 27
22 September 1995
All 24 crew members were lost

Every AWACS guy knows this one. What sucks is that there were airman on base getting in trouble for hunting the geese just prior to that. Lot's of guys had been pointing out the problem but (if memory serves) Alaska Fish and Game said they had to leave them be. This is what happens when you listen to beauracrats.

A redtail I hit a few years ago. He dove from above but apparently didn't factor in the strut below the wing. I was about 1000 AGL.

"The first B-1B [84-0052] crash after the aircraft became operational in 1986 was on 28 September 1987 at La Junta, near near Pueblo Colorado. Two of those killed were instructors who were not in ejection seats and did not have time to bail out manually. A third crewman, the co-pilot, died because his ejection seat malfunctioned. Three surviving crew members bailed out successfully. The bomber from Dyess AFB was flying a low level training mission about 600 feet above the ground at a speed of 560 knots [about 645 mph] when the plane struck a 15-to-20-pound North America white pelican. The bird tore through a wing, ripping apart critical hydraulic, electrical and fuel lines. This started a fire which maded it impossible for the pilot to control the plane. The Air Force subsequently hardened the vulnerable area on the remaining B-1s. Individual B-1Bs were restricted from high-speed, low-altitude flight below 5,000 ft. above ground level until bird strike protection kits were installed, with all modifications completed by December 1988. The modifications are designed to withstand the impact of a 10-lb. bird at 590 kt. The B-1B was originally designed to withstand strikes by birds weighing up to six pounds. "


I wonder if Steve F hit a bird trying to find some lift, or maybe not.

mtv wrote:AKGrouch and Lownslow,

Nope, you both missed it. It was an EC-121 AWACS airplane (modified Boeing 707), with 21 people aboard.

If the Air Force had not insisted on trying to make the areas alongside the runway look like a golf course, it never would have happened. They built great goose habitat right beside their runway.

That airplane lost the two left side engines, right after takeoff at MTOW, and had no hope of making it.

MTV

I couldn't remember exactly what type of plane it was (slept too many times and years since it happened). I just remember it was a tragic event and noone survived.