The talk of bird strikes brings to my mind a story I heard years ago, in the days when I was accruing gliding hours. It related to a glider pilot, I believe an Italian, who was soaring in the Alps, some nice big ridges there to provide lots of lovely upwardly flowing air. This chap, it appeared found a thermal, and decided to make use of its assistance. Within minutes of starting his turn, in a solid climb, he noticed an eagle (not sure what kind, I heard a "bloody big one") formatting on his in turn wing tip, and screeching its head off. Ignoring the bird he continued to climb. After a short time there was an almighty crash and the bird arrived, through the Perspex of his canopy and proceeded to set about the pilot, who received serious damage around his eyes. As I was told, the bird believed that the pilot was invading its airspace and decided to take him to task. The ending I heard was that the pilot managed to throttle the bird, and land safely back at the launch point. I wonder if anyone else has heard of this, I will set off on an Internet hunt now, to see if I can find any historical evidence of its veracity.
Smudge
