Bird strike

azure

azure

Final Approach
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azure
I hit a bird in cruise at 3500 feet this evening, a glancing blow (to the plane obviously, not the bird). It hit the pilot's side wing root right above my head. I don't think it came through the prop arc at all. The wing root is bloodied up and has some deep scratches in the skin, probably from the beak or talons (I'm guessing this was a small hawk, given the altitude and time of day), and the vertical stab is sprayed with blood too. There are a couple spots of blood on the corner of the windshield too. I can't tell for sure if there's a crack in the wing root skin, it seems too straight for a scratch but doesn't separate when pressed. My mechanic wants to clean it up and make the final determination when he gets back from out of town tomorrow night.
 
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Even small birds are prolific bleeders when in flight. I've hit some so small I didn't feel or hear the impact and found a large part of the airframe covered with blood.

azure said:
I hit a bird in cruise at 3500 feet this evening, a glancing blow (to the plane obviously, not the bird). It hit the pilot's side wing root right above my head. I don't think it came through the prop arc at all. The wing root is bloodied up and has some deep scratches in the skin, probably from the beak or talons (I'm guessing this was a small hawk, given the altitude and time of day), and the vertical stab is sprayed with blood too. There are a couple spots of blood on the corner of the windshield too. I can't tell for sure if there's a crack in the wing root skin, it seems too straight for a scratch but doesn't separate when pressed. My mechanic wants to clean it up and make the final determination when he gets back from out of town tomorrow night.
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I wasn't too surprised by the blood as bird strike was my leading theory anyway. It just gave me a sort of sick feeling. What really surprised me was the impact, since I never saw it coming. There was no flock of birds. It was dusk, but still light enough that multiple birds would have gotten my attention. I had the chart in my lap and had just looked down to identify a town I was coming up on, when there was a loud thump above my head. My first thought was I'd been hit by a meteor, then realized that a meteor would have come right through the hull. The best I can figure is that the bird was flying straight and in roughly my direction, so there was no relative motion to draw my eye.

I'm very conscious of birds at low altitudes, on approach or in the pattern, but never expected to hit one out of the blue in cruise.
 
Is it time to update your display name? :(
iFlyWoundedBird or iFlyBloodiedBird or some such
 
You think you should talk to somebody (in a consultation setting) about this? :tongue:
azure said:
I wasn't too surprised by the blood as bird strike was my leading theory anyway. It just gave me a sort of sick feeling. What really surprised me was the impact, since I never saw it coming. There was no flock of birds. It was dusk, but still light enough that multiple birds would have gotten my attention. I had the chart in my lap and had just looked down to identify a town I was coming up on, when there was a loud thump above my head. My first thought was I'd been hit by a meteor, then realized that a meteor would have come right through the hull. The best I can figure is that the bird was flying straight and in roughly my direction, so there was no relative motion to draw my eye.

I'm very conscious of birds at low altitudes, on approach or in the pattern, but never expected to hit one out of the blue in cruise.
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azure said:
I'm very conscious of birds at low altitudes, on approach or in the pattern, but never expected to hit one out of the blue in cruise.
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I've hit juicy bugs much higher above the ground than I expected, so a bird at 3500 MSL wouldn't surprise me too much. Glad all it was was a thump and a mess. With luck your mechanic won't find anything worse.
 
I just got back from the airport where I took a real close look at the mess in the daylight. The long straight scratch I was afraid might be a crack turned out to be a streak of dried blood. Most of what I thought was scratched paint is actually finely mashed bird innards. I'm pretty sure now that my mechanic won't find damage to anything but maybe the paint -- the bird basically exploded on impact just above the windshield and the rest of the mess is just a mess. I have some pictures that I'll post later.

The only question now in my mind is about the prop. The Cardinal sits so low that there is basically no way a bird could have hit at that point without coming through the prop arc, although there is no evidence of damage to the prop. Does this qualify as a prop strike requiring testing, or worse, engine teardown? I can't imagine that at those rotation speeds much if any of a bird's kinetic energy would have been transferred to the prop.
 
If you'd have been flying a low wing you probably wouldn't have hit it. :wink2:
 
azure said:
I just got back from the airport where I took a real close look at the mess in the daylight. The long straight scratch I was afraid might be a crack turned out to be a streak of dried blood. Most of what I thought was scratched paint is actually finely mashed bird innards. I'm pretty sure now that my mechanic won't find damage to anything but maybe the paint -- the bird basically exploded on impact just above the windshield and the rest of the mess is just a mess. I have some pictures that I'll post later.

The only question now in my mind is about the prop. The Cardinal sits so low that there is basically no way a bird could have hit at that point without coming through the prop arc, although there is no evidence of damage to the prop. Does this qualify as a prop strike requiring testing, or worse, engine teardown? I can't imagine that at those rotation speeds much if any of a bird's kinetic energy would have been transferred to the prop.
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FWIW, you'd be surprised how they can miss the prop... I once just barely missed a small, fast-flying bird when it came across the cowl, between the prop and windscreen, just as I was taking off. It seemed impossible- that was one lucky bird! Your hawk or whatever may have been trying to evade and turned at that last moment; maybe its actual trajectory was different than you think.
 
From what I've read, most birds instinctively fold their wings and dive when scared. Its possible that it was just above and hit the wing on its dive.
 
rottydaddy said:
FWIW, you'd be surprised how they can miss the prop... I once just barely missed a small, fast-flying bird when it came across the cowl, between the prop and windscreen, just as I was taking off. It seemed impossible- that was one lucky bird! Your hawk or whatever may have been trying to evade and turned at that last moment; maybe its actual trajectory was different than you think.
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Oh at takeoff, yes I believe that. I doubt a bird could maneuver that quickly with me in cruise though. But even if it came through the prop arc, it's quite possible for it to not touch metal. I just did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. At 2300 rpm, even with a 3-bladed prop like mine, a bird would only be sliced for certain if it took more than 8 ms to come through the prop arc. At a relative speed of 80 m/s (about 150 kts), any bird shorter than about 65 cm (i.e. practically any bird you're likely to encounter in the midwest in cruise flight) could make it through... and the shorter the bird, the likelier it is to miss the prop blades.

Even if the bird was going in my direction, with a relative speed of say 60 m/s, a small bird is still fairly likely to miss the prop.
 
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Jaybird180 said:
From what I've read, most birds instinctively fold their wings and dive when scared. Its possible that it was just above and hit the wing on its dive.
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Thank you! I knew I'd read something like that somewhere but wasn't sure if they dove or pulled up.
 
Some pics of the strike site (and the mess on the vertical stab) from today...
 

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Jaybird180 said:
From what I've read, most birds instinctively fold their wings and dive when scared. Its possible that it was just above and hit the wing on its dive.
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Seagulls tend to split-s in front of the aircraft. On the other hand, ducks and geese seem to maintain course and speed quite nicely.
 
azure said:
Some pics of the strike site (and the mess on the vertical stab) from today...
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I know what kind of bird it is.





It's a dead bird.


Had 3 big geese fly in front of me just after I lifted off this afternoon - They turned in front of me and, I think, dropped some altitude. I was able to climb over them with no problem. But it was a surprise.
 
You folks are quite lucky that you do not have the trumpter Swans to contend with. they fly in groups of 4-6, ( a family) and weigh 20-25 pounds. with a wing span of 6 feet.

there are estimates of 8,000 in the Skaget delta now waiting for weather to warm up in the north country.

Plus the 4 flocks of Snow geese, of about 3-4 million birds in each flock.
 

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Tom-D said:
You folks are quite lucky that you do not have the trumpter Swans to contend with. they fly in groups of 4-6, ( a family) and weigh 20-25 pounds. with a wing span of 6 feet.
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No, but within the next couple of weeks or so we should start to see great blue herons, sandhill cranes, and egrets. There is a heron rookery just a couple of miles off a line from my home base to where I fuel up.

Spring is almost here. Better be careful out there.
 
azure said:
Some pics of the strike site (and the mess on the vertical stab) from today...
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Yum. I'm glad I already had breakfast.

That's an interesting place for the OAT probe. Where is the gauge located relative to the headliner/overhead console?
 
Yeowza. Looks ugly, but glad that you (and the plane) seem to have come out unscathed.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine once hit a bird of significant size in his A36 Bonanza. It went right throug the prop, left a bloody mess on the plane. No visible damage. Singles seem to have the prop as an advantage - if a bird hits my windshield, that little plexiglass is my only line of defense prior to my face.
 
It's interesting to see the airframe location of birdstrikes. I've had something over a half-dozen, and all but one have been in the same general area of the upper fuselage windshield juncture. Makes me wonder if there were a lot more that barely missed. Our King Air partner took two geese at the same time on the leading edge of the wing. One made a perfect goose-fuselage indentation in the leading edge, the other completely tore up the tip. The event left a lasting impression on his wife and daughters who were riding in back.

Ted DuPuis said:
Yeowza. Looks ugly, but glad that you (and the plane) seem to have come out unscathed.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine once hit a bird of significant size in his A36 Bonanza. It went right throug the prop, left a bloody mess on the plane. No visible damage. Singles seem to have the prop as an advantage - if a bird hits my windshield, that little plexiglass is my only line of defense prior to my face.
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azure said:
No, but within the next couple of weeks or so we should start to see great blue herons, sandhill cranes, and egrets. There is a heron rookery just a couple of miles off a line from my home base to where I fuel up.

Spring is almost here. Better be careful out there.
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yes sir, any of those big birds will ruin your day..
 
11,000' the NAVY TC4C took an eagle right on the #2 prop spinner and intake ring, that old Rolls Dart eat what went down the intake, and the prop spread the rest all down one side of the TC4C.

I guess that eagle was out riding thermals and having fun when we ruined his day.
 
wabower said:
It's interesting to see the airframe location of birdstrikes. I've had something over a half-dozen, and all but one have been in the same general area of the upper fuselage windshield juncture. Makes me wonder if there were a lot more that barely missed. Our King Air partner took two geese at the same time on the leading edge of the wing. One made a perfect goose-fuselage indentation in the leading edge, the other completely tore up the tip. The event left a lasting impression on his wife and daughters who were riding in back.
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:needpics:
 
Yellowbird said:
Yum. I'm glad I already had breakfast.

That's an interesting place for the OAT probe. Where is the gauge located relative to the headliner/overhead console?
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You know, I never use the overhead OAT gauge but I believe there still is one. I always use the JPI, but I don't know where its OAT probe is.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Yeowza. Looks ugly, but glad that you (and the plane) seem to have come out unscathed.
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Yep, and my mechanic agrees: no damage at all. He thinks it might have actually hit partly on the windshield. I think the drops on the windshield were moving down not up, but it probably did hit the window seal. Still, the seal is (thankfully) undamaged as well. There's no evidence of anything on the cowl or on the prop, so he says it either missed the blades or it was crossing from left to right when I clipped it. So that's another worry off my mind: no need for a prop teardown.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine once hit a bird of significant size in his A36 Bonanza. It went right throug the prop, left a bloody mess on the plane. No visible damage. Singles seem to have the prop as an advantage - if a bird hits my windshield, that little plexiglass is my only line of defense prior to my face.
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Well, in my case there's no evidence that the prop helped at all. In fact, if it had been a couple of feet lower it might have come through the windshield. Even though I chose the thicker (1/4-inch I think) plexiglass when I had the windshield replaced last summer, I doubt that would be much defense against a 10-lb bird moving at 130 kts. The shallow angle of the Cardinal's windshield might have been enough to protect me though. I hope I never have to find out. :eek:
 
fszczerba said:
10 lbs would be a really big bird, like Bald Eagle size. That would suck.
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Or even a 5-lb bird, for that matter. Kinetic energy scales linearly with the mass, but with the square of the speed, and 130 kts is pretty fast.
 
azure said:
Or even a 5-lb bird, for that matter. Kinetic energy scales linearly with the mass, but with the square of the speed, and 130 kts is pretty fast.
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a red tailed hawk hit the leading edge of a C172XP and blew a hole all the way thru to the spar.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Had 3 big geese fly in front of me just after I lifted off this afternoon - They turned in front of me and, I think, dropped some altitude. I was able to climb over them with no problem. But it was a surprise.
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Heh... When I saw "3 big geese" and "dropped some" I wasn't expecting the next word to be "altitude." :rofl:
 
Open my email, to find this....just had to include it. Hope the author doesn't mind.
 

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On August 30, 2011, about 1800 eastern daylight time, a bird of unknown make/model was destroyed when it collided with a Cessna 177B shortly after takeoff from runway 10 at Delaware Municipal Airport (DLZ), Delaware, Ohio. The bird received fatal injuries. The Cessna pilot was uninjured. The personal flight was operated under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the flight.

Immediately after takeoff, the pilot of the Cessna heard a light thump and noticed a smear of dark liquid similar to the impact of a large insect on the starboard side of the windshield. No other anomalies were noted. After the flight, dried blood and fragments of tissue and feathers were observed splattered along the leading edge of the starboard wing as far out as mid span, and to a lesser extent on the starboard side of the nose and the full length of the leading edge of the starboard stabilator. The initial impact point was identified by a smear of blood and feather fragments on the leading edge of one of the propeller blades, about 6 inches inboard of the tip.

The aircraft sustained no damage. The species of bird could not be determined from the available remains.
 

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I did my PPL training in major bird country. All our trainer 172's had big dents in the wing leading edges from birds.

If you have a choice, pull up and climb. Birds instinctively dive when threatened.
 
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