For Boeing 747 captains
 

I`ve always wanted to know this..out of interest.
All you 747 captains,ready??!!

One day your happlily flying along at...31,000 ft and at cruise speed..say 2 hours into a loooong flight somewhere..you`ve taken off with full payload and all engines are operating in normal limits.

Suddenly a large flock of high flying budgies fly into all 4 of your engines rendering them absolutely useless,so you have to shut them down :eek:

How far can your plane glide,and how long have you got before your guardian angel does a runner???

Not that I'm a captain on the 747 but birds don't fly at that altitude.

Let's say we're at 10000FT and all engines are out. If you are about 20-25NM from an airport you've got a good chance at landing there.

Hmm, I do remember reading somewhere about an incident where an airliner had a close encounter with a flock of migratory birds (some species of the goose I believe) at an altitude of over 11 thousand meters but I can't recall any details.

Does anybody know what is the highest altitute that a bird has ever been spotted?

Malybenek

Recast the question to;you're flying along minding your own business and you enter a volcanic ash cloud at 31,000 feet. There's been a few of these, so theres so some real data out there somewhere about drift down while they tried to get what was left of the engines to turn and burn. Pprunners??

Hmm..the birds at 31,000ft was a joke..btw!

You don't get out much, do you Stephen.

The Condor has been seen over the higher parts of South America up above FL290.

31 x 3 = 93 NM, no wind, straight in to sea level airport.:cool:

Yep, very close to normal descent profile.

Canadian geese have been reliably reported at over 31,000 feet.

"Canadian geese have been reliably reported at over 31,000 feet.
"

Interesting!!

Can you provide any credible source for such reliability ?

Well the Guinness record is a Ruppell's vulture that collided with an aircraft over Abidjan in '73 at 37,000ft.

No news on the Canadian geese though.

It's true about the geese. I've seen the loading manifest

Those birds must be equiped not only with really thick feathers but some really light weight/high capacity ox-tanks!!