Originally Posted by
jumpseater
Re Birdstrikes a good few years back I did some extensive studies and stats analysis on bird strikes for a FW commercial airline.
Most strikes high 90%'s occurred in daylight/twilight hours, night strikes were very rare.
If I recall the numbers correctly, most impacts likely 2/3rds were beneath 3-400ft height.
I can't recall any reports of a strike that wasn't some form of head on collision, be it airframe/nose/screen/leading edges, engines and ingestions into engines.
Assuming a direct tail rotor strike, I'd be very surprised if a bird (singular) faced with a relatively slowly manoeuvring helicopter in its path, anticols flashing, high noise and downdrafts etc didn't take its own avoiding action, i.e turn away from the helicopter, as most species do react negatively to various forms of pyrotechnics and noise.
I'd anticipate a hovering, or slow moving helicopter to be producing enough downward turbulence and rotor wash to potentially protect it from a bird strike?
Unfortunately birds don't read Rotorheads and the tales of birdstrikes in just those conditions are legion. Mine include an albatross flying into the main rotor of a Sea King running on deck, Spot 5, HMS Ark Royal, ready for takeoff with the ship steaming at 15kts. Another was hover taxiing out in a 412 at an airport, and so on.
The premise in this accident has a likelihood somewhere between nil and -10, as the remains would easily have been visible on the TR blade(s) and identified early in the investigation. Returning to discuss a birdstrike on the TR is just wasting bandwidth, IMO.