Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
I had a bird break my canopy once (the first time I called Mayday for real and it was on 1 May - Mayday!) and I had a wingman lose his canopy once as well. Both times in a Hawk T1.
The first incident was on a low level target run near Lampeter. A bird of prey hit the canopy directly above the students head in the front seat and left a roughly circular hole about 18” in diameter. It got very loud and very cold (May in Wales even at low level was not exactly tropical) but once we slowed down and were on our way to Cardiff it was much quieter. Still very hard to hear the radios though. In the back seat I was unaffected by wind blast but was glad I had a flying jacket on! We were able to open the canopy and exit normally.
The second incident was at low level near Aberystwyth and I saw my wingman inexplicably climb out of low level which usually means only one thing. I closed in and saw a very similar picture to Red 6’s jet. The front seater was hunched over and MDC was flapping about everywhere. He managed to cut some of it away I believe with his knife. I did all the comm for them and led them back to Valley. I’m glad I wasn’t in that one since I’ve seen what MDC can do to brick walls and doors. I wouldn’t want to wear it like a scarf.
Anyway, in this recent instance the Reds guys did exactly what they would have briefed and practiced multiple times. I would expect no less.
BV
Interesting stories, thanks for sharing Bob. 👍