Bird Strike

deafsound

deafsound

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Mar 31, 2005
Messages
797
Location
Boston
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i arrrghhmmmmpppth
I was doing the traffic watch on friday afternoon. The traffic was horrific this day due to school vacation week coming up and also the long president's day weekend. Everywhere..traffic traffic traffic. I don't know how people can stand driving anywhere. I'm so glad I'm a pilot.
Anyway, we usually get a few touch and goes in each flight to keep things interesting, and this past friday was a very windy day, with serious cross winds and drifting snow on the runways and whatnot.
So we did a touch and go at LWM, and on the go, I saw something shooting by the window, and said "was that a bird?!" to the other pilot, who was at that time just a passenger. He hadn't seen it. Thought nothing else of it until saturday, when I returned to the airport to cover the wings and canopy and noticed blood and guts along the right cowling and wing root. I guess we shredded the poor little bird. He must've gone right thru the prop. I didn't feel or hear a thing when it happened, and there was no damage.
Glad it went thru the prop and not the windshield.
 
no damage anywhere except for guts
 
Scary stuff. A friend of mine hit a large bird on short final in an Arrow. He said it made a 10" dent in the leading edge of the wing. I've been toying with the idea of a helmet -- I know of at least one case where that saved a pilot from getting a face full of bird (he had the shield down).
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Scary stuff. A friend of mine hit a large bird on short final in an Arrow. He said it made a 10" dent in the leading edge of the wing. I've been toying with the idea of a helmet -- I know of at least one case where that saved a pilot from getting a face full of bird (he had the shield down).
Click to expand...

Besides, helicopter pilots with helmets look way cool.

Chris
 
My student and I thought we hit a bird once, after we did several takeoffs and landings in the rain. Judging by what was stuck all over our flaps, we thought a bird had gone through our prop. It took awhile to put two and two together... why would both flaps look so similar? Then we realized those were worms, not a bird! It had been raining for hours and there were worms all over the runway apparently. Now... if we had we waited for all the hungry robins to come out, that could have led to a bird strike!
 
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