How many bird strikes have you had?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The bird strike discussion got me to thinking about just how often we hit them.

I can only recall about ten or so bird strikes during my flying career.

I also did a lot of low level work, five years agricultural flying both fixed and rotary wing, fifteen seasons fire bombing, one season low level survey flying and seven years in the air show flying business.

I was wondering how other pilots fared in hitting birds in flight?

[Piper.Classique]

I haven't had any.....Probably because the cub flies as slowly as they do. On the other hand, I have shared a lot of thermals with buzzards and vultures when gliding, and I can tell you they keep a pretty good lookout. :)

[TheGorrilla]

I've had 4. 2 on short finals to Lyon on seperate occasions in A320s, 1 on an RJ100 while circuit flying that went down engine 1 and resulted in a 3 eng ferry home and 1 on finals to LHR in a B777. Not hit any in GA thankfully. I'm not sure how well my Cub would stand up to a strike either. Probable that the bird would simply perch on one of the wing struts.

[SNS3Guppy]

Several thousand birdstrikes, but only a few have resulted in damage. Most resulted in dead birds, many I have no idea what happened to the bird, and most left only blood or debris on the airplane, or in some cases, the bird in or wrapped around part of the airplane. Many of those were while flying ag, often when a flock of birds would rise out of the crop just as I approached.

Of the few that did cause damage, one was a falcon over the Grand Canyon, which peeled the wing back to spar on a Cessna 210. Another was in a Lear 35, which crushed the radome and carried up into the copilot windscreen. Another was in a Cessna 182, in the windscreen; curiously at night at 10,000' in the mountains. The Lear was outside Las Vegas at night too, while slowing to 250 knots at 10,000'. A mallard duck broke the nosewheel fairing on a Cessna 152 while landing, once.

That's about all that comes to mind. I've had evidence of brd ingestion through an engine, but didn't know it at the time, and found no evidence of damage after.

[flybymike]

Several thousand bidstrikes! Even with several thousand hours , that is a strike for every hour flown! :eek:

[TheGorrilla]

SNS3G must be a magnet for the birds! What's your secret mate, i could do with some more action?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

SNS3G must be a magnet for the birds! What's your secret mate, i could do with some more action?


:D :D :D

[stiknruda]

I've only had 2 in 20 years and over 1500 hrs. Both during the flare to land.

One a guinea fowl in a Citabria in Swaziland, the other a French partidge in Norfolk in the Pitts. I caught the guinea fowl with the wing strut and the partridge with the wheel spat/gear leg.

Both were hung, plucked, drawn and eaten!

[BEagle]

3 - 1 which hit the fin of the Hunter I was flying and peeled back part of the skin (only found out about it after landing) and 2 in VC10s. The first (a tern) hit the fuselage just above the captain's windscreen and the second (a hobby, poor little sod) hit just above the flight deck.

Both VC10 incidents were during continuation training and on both occasions we landed off the next approach.

I also watched a bird pass over the wing of the Gnat I was flying; it disappeared somewhere beneath the aircraft. Probably quaking with fright.

But nothing like the fright a fox which just avoided us on a night touch-and-go in another VC10 must have experienced!

[Final 3 Greens]

1, in a PA32.

Hell of a bang just before the flare, ATC reported a strike, firemen attended and found two dead lapwings.

Got out of aircraft expecting big dent, but only found a slight blood trace on LHS main gear spat.

A couple of years later, a fellow pilot hit a Thrush and it made a noticeable dent in the L/E.

Guess there's a lot of luck involved in the damage stakes.

[ShyTorque]

I've had a lot, mainly during military rotary flying at low level (50' - 200' agl). We used to land on, have a look for damage, pick up any remains of the bird to send to MAFF, then carry on. I once had a BIG birdstrike at midnight whilst doing a night casevac over the sea under a full moon. That bird blotted out the ground lights just before it hit the roof, somewhere above my head and from the marks on the roof, it's wingspan was well over a metre. It was possibly a black eared kite, there were lots of them in that part of the world (hence my username). It bounced through the main rotor pitch control rods already tenderised or I might well not be here. Also had one, or two wood pigeons go clean down an intake without causing any damage to the turbine. Just lots of partly cooked bird in the jetpipe.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

When I was on watch as a Tower Controller at Heathrow one morning around 6.30am in the early 70s we had 215 bird strikes with two successive aircraft, resulting in the closure of both runways. At the time it was the record for the most strikes in the shortest time at Heathrow.

[camlobe]

Three times so far, all at low level. Four birds in total. Two on one take off (big dent in the stbd wing L/E), a third on another take-off, and one on landing. There was also the rabbit...

camlobe

[Them thar hills]

I can't claim any birdstrikes at all, but does being hit by a golf ball count ? t

[SNS3Guppy]

[QUOTE]Several thousand bidstrikes! Even with several thousand hours , that is a strike for every hour flown!
[QUOTE]

As stated before, the lions share of those strikes occured while performing aerial application (crop dusting). Birds would nestle down in the crop, and by the time the flock was alerted to the aircraft, I was nearly on top of them. They'd rise out of the crop and the number of strikes on the airframe sounded like popcorn popping. We called them popcorn birds for that reason.

After every landing, birds would often be found wrapped around booms and nozzles, inside the automatic flagman, and other parts of the aircraft. Some operators elected to go with reinforced leading edges to cut down on the damage the birds caused.

Where one is working makes a big difference in the number of bird strikes or encounters one might expect.

[Miraz]

One.....but on my second solo circuit!

Fortunately a non-event as it glanced off the upper leading edge of the wing leaving nothing but a smudge as evidence.

[Mariner9]

None in 400-odd hours so far.

[S-Works]

I have been struck by a few birds that I have tried it on with, does that count?
:p

[MakeItHappenCaptain]

Know a QF driver who cleaned up 23 birds in one strike flying a 744 into NZ. Said the entire runway seemed to pick up and shift left on short final.

[Rod1]

None in 900 hours, and long may it continue to remain at zero.

Rod1

[Cricket23]

1 in 120 hrs.

On the landing roll. A pidgeon straight into the prop. No damage, but lots of bits everywhere.

C23

[ShyTorque]

An ex-colleague and friend of mine (we joined the RAF on the same day some thirty one years ago), was co-pilot on an RAF Nimrod that ran into a flock of seagulls on takeoff some years ago, as it took off for an Atlantic patrol. They found the remains of over 70 birds on the runway. This didn't include the ones which went down the engines, destroying three of the four. Unfortunately the two pilots didn't survive because the cockpit was destroyed, due to the aircraft being put down in the trees off the end of the runway; however the rest of the crew did.

[IFMU]

Two birdstrikes within my first 500 or so hours, then none since. One in a pawnee, a hawk popped up on short final and hit right at the intersection of the strut & jury strut. Was a little messy, no damage to the pawnee. One in a pitts, on short final similar situation with a turkey buzzard. Hit the flying wires about where they cross each other. Slice 'em, dice 'em. No damage to the pitts and very little mess.

I have flown close with some soaring birds in gliders, without hitting them. This is even though they don't always follow the rules about thermalling in the same direction as the established traffic.

-- IFMU

[Lasiorhinus]

Nearly had a giraffe-strike once, over Africa..

http://scottwalter.com/media/giraffe.gif

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Yesterday, bimbling along in the Chipmunk somewhere south of Nantwich at about 2,000 feet a black dot rapidly resolved into a thermalling buzzard... magnificent sight, wings outstretched, he turned to look at the approaching noisy flying machine, gave me an 'eyes roll' look, and dived under the Chippy's left wing.

Not many 'twitchers' get to see birds in their natural environment as we do. They look quite different to the way they look from the ground... far more majestic.

Birdstrike? Just once, taking off in that same Chippy a junior black-headed gull came through the prop. No damage to the aeroplane, but the bird became a no-headed gull. :E

[DB6]

3 in 5,000 hours. One in a C152, 2 Oyster Catchers hit the wheels, one unidentified in a Saab (just blood along the side) and one - very lucky - on a night takeoff from Stornoway in a Saab 340. One Canada goose found embedded in the underside and TWELVE found dead on the runway :eek::eek::eek:. Very close one, that.

[doubleu-anker]

Three strikes so far.

The last bird I hit was the smallest but did the most damage. The reason being, the bird was in a tree at the time.:}

[Milt]

Two bird strikes in two days got to be a bit willing!

From memoirs

Birds caused me some problems at Butterworth in Malaya. I wanted to test the modified ECS (environmental control system) at low altitude and high speed. Whilst at about 400 kts at 200 ft over the sea off the island of Penang, I noticed a little black spot grow rapidly in size directly along the aircraft flight path. I only had time to pull a little on the stick before the bird impacted with a big thump on the aircraft's nose. I pulled up losing speed trying to assess damage. At the speed even a small bird could do considerable damage and this one had been fairly large. We returned immediately to land at Butterworth.

Fortunately, the bird had impacted along one edge of the forward bomb aimer's window. This was armoured glass and had taken most of the shock. A deep gouge had been made in the perspex surrounding the glass window. We were lucky.

A few days later I had the test Canberra fuel load at maximum when I started a take-off at dusk from the 8,000 ft runway at Butterworth. As we accelerated towards lift-off, I saw a very dense flock of small birds rise up off the runway some 600 feet away. Appearing like a small black cloud the birds flew upwards and I thought that I would probably miss most of them if I held down, on or close to, the runway. But the black cloud, disturbed by my approach, apparently decided to try to go back to ground.

I had now lifted off and had a split second to decide whether to put the wheels back on the runway and abort the take off. But there was hardly enough runway left in which to stop the heavy aircraft. Were I to fly through the birds, I would likely lose both engines. What a predicament! Instinctively, I pulled back hard on the controls in an attempt to rise above the main concentration of birds. The aircraft shuddered, at the low speed, as I felt for the limits of the lift from the wings. This occurs just before wing stall which was to be avoided at all costs.

The navigator, behind me, was unable to see forward so I advised him and the tower by calling out,"Avoiding birds" as I tried to also turn a little to the right. The black cloud rapidly became a multitude of dots as I squashed into the outer fringes. There was a staccato of little bangs and the left engine wound down a few RPM before recovering. We had made it. I pulled a substantial reduction in power on both engines in case there was damage, left the undercarriage down and flew a tight circuit to return to the runway as soon as possible. On the landing run, I could see dead and injured birds scattered on the runway.

There was evidence of birds having hit the engine compressor guide vanes and many birds and pieces were pulled from the undercarriage and wheel wells. We had not been fast enough for the small birds to have damaged the aircraft skin. The fire crew picked up 58 birds from the runway.

[B2N2]

4 in 15 years:

1 in a glider, simply bounced off
1 of the prop tip in a Piper Cub on short final, made a funny noise (twing!) and bounced off
1 at night in an Aztec at an unholy speed in the descent, bounced off the nose and splattered all over the right engine.
1 on the horizontal stabilizer of another light twin on downwind. That was the scary one. It did cause damage.

[Bath]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm248/bath1565/IAF_UH-60_after_birds_strike_outsid.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm248/bath1565/bird-v-plane.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm248/bath1565/kscn707l.jpg

[exppl]

I can only claim one birdstrike, Cessna 172 port wing LE just inboard of the support strut about 300ft after T/o.... what a bang (Seagull picked up from runway later) I felt the bang through the rudder pedals & did not realise it was a Bird Strike, I wondered what the @ell had happened, so asked the tower to for a "fly by", seems ok was the response.
On landing, the dent in the port L/e was apparent, so the impact "thump" had been transmitted via the strut to the fuselage...... it sure got my attention !!

[BackPacker]

Just had my first one today after 130 hours.

A seagull impacting the leading edge of the right wing of a PA28-161, just between the outer two ribs. Happened on something like 200' final to land and I must've been doing about 70-75 knots at the time. Aircraft felt fine so I continued to land. Damage is a severely dented leading edge (about 10 cm deep, 30 cm across) with the metal torn away over something like 7 cm over the rib, and something like 7 rivets torn loose.

A lot of damage from a bird weighing less than a kilo, at relatively low speed. Gave me a new appreciation for the damage they can do when they hit the windscreen.

Strangely enough, I only heard it. Did not feel a thing through the fuselage.

To be honest, the worst thing about it all is the paperwork. This is a reportable incident so every relevant bit of paper needed to be copied and faxed to the police - 16 pages and counting.

[Ken Wells]

RAF Woodvale 2 in 8 years. Lapwings then we had to find the corpse and send it to the CAA.

Also Lol in our Nangchang Group large crow outr of Gamston dented the leading Edge the size of a football.

Repaired by Personal Plane Services at Booker , great job.

[IFMU]

I witnessed the aftermath of a semi-spectacular birdstrike once. Working on the ramp we heard a mayday call on our tower frequency and a request for an ambulance. A Jet Ranger flew in slowly, you could see the windscreen all smashed and the co-pilot was holding onto the edges to keep it from collapsing further. The shut down the machine and one of the guys in the back got out holding a large turkey buzzard, threw him on the tarmac and walked to the ambulance. These 4 guys were doing power line patrol when they hit the bird. Pilot saw it at the last minute, yelled and ducked. Guy in back heard him yelling, looked up and forward and caught the bird after it went through the glass.

-- IFMU

[scooter boy]

Coasting in near Shoreham on the way back from Issy-Les Moulineaux - sudden thud like a hammer on the bubble - lots of feathers - probably a gull of some sort. No damage done (to the helicopter). I fly along the coast quite a lot down here in Cornwall and the birds can get pretty close - usually they move out of the way though.

Hit a pigeon low level in the London area - blood and guts everywhere took a while to wash the mess off the windscreen of my truck!

SB

[Ericson]

One bird hit with Puchacz glider during flare ( Puchacz means owl in english , hehe ) I've 550 TT. No damage to glider and I took fellow aviator to the zoo with broken wing for repairs :8

[wrecker]

More than i can remember in 50 years of flying but one which sticks in the mind was at Prestwick in the early 70s starting up on the pan outside of "Corenna" when a herring gull flew straight into number 2 intake just as the spey was starting. Got well down into the the engine and totally ruined the hp compressor section. One other was unusual; at about FL350 near Mt Blanc a Bird strike with something about the size of a swift