Bird Strike
 

BBC reporting, 17 June 2016. Manchester, England


Gull strike on R44, came through into the cabin. Happened at 1500ft, gull hit the controls. Recovered at 700 ft


Report and video here

Lucky it wasn't in the face.

"A seagull that crashed into a helicopter, smashing its windscreen, caused the aircraft to plunge 800ft and the captain to make a mayday call."

Howard says that if the bird starts coming back round their problems will get worse,

So, one climbs back up and happily carries on with the flight?

A friend had an eagle smash through the window of a Huey, and splat into his lap - luckily dead, but still a bit distracting.

I had a galah JUST miss the front window but got sucked into the open cabin door, splattering on the foot of the crewman in the back.

And I lost 2 mates when their F-111 at 450kt hit a pelican, too low to eject once they got over the shock.

many years ago, during a tactical flight exercise we bump a pigeon. Lucky we are only at 60/70 knots and the bird just take off.
First the bird broke the windshield...then my pilot got a pigeon in his face.......I got the control, my pilot say something inaudible in the radio....., spit the entrail of the bird, and clean his bloody face.....
Ironically, the type of helicopter was "Alouette 3" (lark 3 in french) Back to base, we have to file a birdstrike report.....

my thoughts exactly Sid - and these guys are planning to run a flying academy to teach others?????

Looks like the academy is already up and running;

http://news.images.itv.com/image/fil...stream_img.jpg

Helicopter Pleasure Flights, Flying Lessons & Charter - Flight Academy
https://www.facebook.com/flightacademymanchester



Love to find out what a 'Buzz Flight' entails!

Years ago, because of our military role, it wasn't uncommon to suffer bird-strikes, especially in the summer. Mainly swifts and swallows (had a strike a couple of years ago with a similar type, but no damage to the aircraft) but a few wood pigeons too.. However, I'm always very wary of Gulls because of their size they have the potential for more damage and they are apparently unfazed by natural mid-airs with their own species. In other words, they might not get out of your way, even if they see you coming.

Years ago we lost at least one of our Harriers in Belize because a certain type of hawk saw the head-on profile of those aircraft (with their anhedral wings) as a "stooping" hawk intruder coming into it's territory and would turn in to attack it.

Some years ago a colleague of mine flying a Gazelle on a low flying instructional sortie took a seagull to the face. Not much permanent damage, but they put it down in a field because the canopy had broken. Another Gazelle, an AAC one in RAFG, had a birdstrike with a buzzard and it was still alive and pecking inside the cockpit! The report said that it was subsequently "dispatched" by the observer!

The Turmo 3C4s on the Puma used to convert sparrows, swallows etc. into fuel. In Northern Ireland flying low level one would pick up a dozen or so a day.

Returning from Wildenrath I ran into a big flock of Deutschesparrows whose remains severely obstructed the windscreen. I decided to return to clean up the windscreen and I told ATC why. On arrival I had the whole fire section out to meet me because apparently if Harrier picks up a bumble bee it blows up.

I ended up on top with the SEO explaining that all those bloody streaks on the side of the engine intakes and the splitter vanes whilst my crewman was extracting carcasses out of the rotor head meant nothing and were well inside the capabilities of the engines and the airframe. Much to my amazement he let us go and I never heard anything about it afterwards.

Flying back to Shenzhen from offshore I was threading my way around the red blobs on the weather radar when we collected a big black bird, possibly a Cormorant. This was totally unexpected as we were at 1500 metres, in cloud and this bird flying without clearance in IMC conditions in China was highly illegal.

It hit the radome dead centre; we went IMC in blood and guts and the radar stopped working. This was disconcerting because we were in the middle of a cumulonimbus mine and the GPS didn't know how to dodge them. All went well and we came out and landed safely.

The big dent in the radome had jammed the scanner. Fortunately the scanner wasn't damaged and the local body shop had the radome like new the next day.

Academy!!

And what on earth is a 'R44 Tactical helicopter flying lesson' ???

Strange that their embossed gift vouchers show a Squirrel helicopter but all their blurb is about R22s and R44s - advertising standards anyone?

Shy and FED - it seemed to me that the Puma had far more birdstrikes than any other mil helicopter - and don't tell me it was because you were going so fast in your plastic pursuit ship that they couldn't get out of the way:)

The Wessex was so ugly it repelled them.

Perhaps this is a taster of the 'buzz' flights;



The trip back from the pumps might be a little more 'buzzy';



(Anyone know what the red light and buzzer is indicating at around the minute point?)

SS, I've got my medical in a couple of weeks and you've got me worried. I can only see an amber light and can't hear a buzzer! Not flown a 44 for years but I'm going to guess at clutch light.

FP, I guess it's more of a metallic or 'rubber on pulley' squeak really; once just as the light comes on (behind the cough and just after the woa! from the pax) and twice as the light is going out.
Does the clutch system 'squeak' as it sorts itself out?

I'm guessing it would have a tendency to disengage when you're doing quick stops towards buildings!

Lots of squeaks on R44!
I think the light is indicating the clutch motor is tightening the belts, probably due to flare/low power demand. I welcome corrections from someone current :)

Crab, to have any chance of staying alive against the WP we had to practice flying so low, sometimes they were still sitting in the nest. ;)

Not always FED; typing this out as I look at the battered tip cap from XR 517 as a result of collision with a resident of Stanford PTA on August 19, 1969. A WTF from up-front and a fine collection of open mouths and wide eyes from the 'professional killers' in the cabin. Made a grapefruit size indentation and a helluva vibration, but undo/replace 16 screws and an hour later we were back on task........paperwork? wot paperwork...

Birds at Night - Airspeed
 

something wrong with the airspeed!
Night flying complete and landed back at base it was whilst putting the heli to bed that the cover for the pitot tube had now no purpose - the tube was gone and just a load of feathers remained.
Boss said, 'dont believe it, Birds don't fly at night'. AAC Major went on to fly North Sea

After a very loud bang on the go around on the Chivenor ILS, we landed and scraped some bird remains off the nose just under the pilot's windscreen where there was also a sizeable dent.

We sent the bits off to York (what used to be MAFF) and discovered a few days later that we had killed the female of the only breeding pair of Ospreys in North Devon - oooppps:O

Sid - presumably that pax in the Robbo has gone away thinking that is how helicopters are flown all the time - maybe the pilot wants to fly mustering in Oz;)

Quite right. No buzzer, no squeaking when doing this. Just an orange light. And it has nothing to do with quick stops or any other manoeuvre neither.

Why then a warning light is coming on at all, is another good question that one could ask (and answer) but were are already way too far off topic anyway.