So I had the right-of-way, don't you see, and I was not about to .......................





Thanks to Mostly Cajun, All American!

Had that happen to me during pilot training at Ft. Rucker, Alabama in 1981, with a Turkey buzzard, what a mess that was.

Not to mention the 200 and 1/2 approach to 12R in MSP in a B757 on a fall night when I was still a First Officer. Took a duck right in my windscreen at breakout, right at minimums, sounded like a shotgun going off right in my face.

quote:

Not to mention the 200 and 1/2 approach to 12R in MSP in a B757 on a fall night when I was still a First Officer. Took a duck right in my windscreen at breakout, right at minimums, sounded like a shotgun going off right in my face.

I can relate to that! We had a DC9-32 pulled into the hanger with the radome gone, windshield cracked and the leading edge of one wing holed. Climb out from IAH and they hit a flock of Canadas. Big birds, solid, high impact speed = lots of damage, quickly! One of the birds was trapped between the insulation blanket and the firewall, another that went through the leading edge wingcap was stopped at the wing spar. All in all, one hell of a mess! I always thought they were lucky to have not lost the aircraft!

While working in Papua New Guinea, one of our Hercs took out a bunch of fruit bats. Think three-foot wingspan. The guy that did it was buzzing the yacht club at Lae, where we were honorary members. He forgot that a big flock of bats lived in the tree by the post office up the hill. He scattered them pretty good. Got the leading edge, the radome, and the number two engine. I seem to recall the damage was well in excess of a million dollars. Cost him two weeks on the ground without pay and from thence, he was universally referred to as Batman.

OK, since we're telling our birdstrike stories - Ft. Wolters, TX, 1969, primary rotary wing flight school, on a night training flight. We were flying a Hughes 300 helicopter or TH-55 (better known to Army pilots of that era as the "Mattel Messerschmitt")...top speed of about 80 knots.

A duck smashed through the chin bubble and ended up wrapped around the cyclic, thrashing around between my knees. It was a little tense there for a few seconds until we got the interior light on...couldn't tell if I was wrestling with a great big eagle or what. My instructor took the controls and I managed to get the fairly P.O.ed duck stuffed under my left arm. After putting my nomex glove over his head, the duck calmed right down.

We landed a few minutes later at Palo Pinto stage field, checked out the damage, and walked in to the airfield safety officer with the duck still under my arm. The duck's only apparent injury was a small patch of skin and feathers missing from the top of his head. He was wide awake and tried to bite anybody who reached a hand out to him.

I went out and set the duck down on the taxiway and he took off like a rocket into the dark, to the applause of a few fellow aviators who had gathered to see if he could still fly.

I was cruising along at about 10,000 MSL one day and passed a flock of waterfowl going the other way. I guess I knew birds sometimes flew high but I'd never seen it before.

I'm thinking (yeah I know) that I read about a mallard strike over 20.
I keep wanting to type what I seem to remember, bu don't want to lose what credibility I might have.


28?

Just last Saturday I was giving a couple of friends a ride in my Cherokee and had to make a very abrupt left to avoid some turkey vultures. They passed within fifteen feet. I would not want to take one through the windscreen.

You would think he could hear that thing chopping thru the air and get off of the way.