UA 1475
 

UA 1475 at Denver (B737) somewhat damaged by unidentified bird.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/...87_634x436.jpg

Dolly Parton?

I'm sure there would have been a similar-sized hole on the other side of the nose had it been Dolly :O

Up up and away said...

"I'm sure there would have been a similar-sized hole on the other side of the nose had it been Dolly" :O

Why? Dolly's massive booby absorbers would have cushioned the shock!:p

Rumor was she passed out and had to be carried off by four men. Two abreast.....

..more like Rosanne Barr hit it..

Unless it was hit by a Great Tit (Parus major) of course......

OK.....all good replies, but I wonder just what kind of BIRD it was ?!?!

Small Bird, Big Hole
 

Even a small bird can make a big hole. I once hit a seagull which nearly destroyed the entire nose cone/radome on a P-3.

The dent varries with both object size and speed .

i.e. for the same size bird the frontal area of the dent decreases with increasing speed while the depth of the dent increases with speed. Some similar complicating effects with engine fan blades. It's the combination of dent depth and area for a given speed that relates back to the bird size

For nose domes/cones the hole size is a little more complicated since it depends at what point in the impact and dent sequence the metal begins to tear. Of course if its a flexible non-metalic like fiberglas etc. there may be no visible hole, just a crack which opens during the denting and lets the whole bird inside before springing back closed again.

Simlar effects with ice/hail strikes on aircraft. knowing one or two parameters you can usually work out the others.

With a hard object like a bullet or missle fragment a similar relationship can be worked out at a macro level (TW800 example)

You were doing OK with your explanation up to that point.

Some of the larger airports have full time wildlife control officers. They've been known to take DNA from the blood smear to find the type of bird.

Saw the damage to the front end of an A4k after it collided with a duck at 250kts, the size of the entry 'hole' was rather similar, so perhaps a 1 - 1.5kg feathered missile? Gave the poor old pilot a bit of a start too.

Poor bird.

Sure it was a bird?

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/im...T3zqyrvA2T1ZFZ

Luckily it didn't hit the windshield.

Actually, it probably would have been better if it did hit the windshield. The forward bulkhead is very thin and there are numerous accounts of birds penetrating to the cockpit.