reject for dog on runway
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 20
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
O.K. I can’t stand it anymore without dusting this one off.
In the spring of 1970 a Grumman Albatross from 442 (Transport and Rescue) Squadron was enroute back to home plate at CFB Comox on Vancouver Island from a search in the Terrace area (check your atlas for the British Columbia coast).
For reasons best known to himself, the Skipper (Captain Danger, but not to his face) decided that it would be a great idea to do a touch-and-go at Port Hardy, just to break up the evening flight. With dusk but a memory, we attempted to execute said touch-and-go (‘roller’ to you real ale types), but turned it into a stop when we executed a trespassing deer instead, and realized from the visual and sound cues that it had impacted something on the port side. Vancouver Island deer are a small sub-species and there was no chance it would have hit the engine on the high-winged Albert, but risk management (the current buzz-phrase for CDF) made stopping sound judgment with adequate runway left (unlike the heavy Canberra with rapidly diminishing options).
With the amphibious beast halted on the runway, and local traffic, if any, advised of our status on the aerodrome, the Skipper dispatched the Flight Engineer to investigate the event. When Marty went out the main door, he was carrying a green plastic garbage bag as well as his flashlight. (?? I was new and learning not to question local practice).
After what seemed a long time for a damage recce, and the Captain’s increasingly strident rhetorical queries as to the greasie’s whereabouts, Marty climbed back aboard carrying the plastic bag, from which protruded a pair of hooves. He got back on intercom and the Skipper asked if there was any damage. Marty announced that the forward area of the deer was a write-off, but that the hindquarters were just fine, thanks!
“I meant the f___ng airplane you a--h--e!”, said the boss in a fine demonstration of leadership in action.
“Oh! No sweat sir. The left main tire (tyre) caught him in the shoulder; not a mark on the hull, and the brake lines are OK.”
(more muttered invective from the left seat as we got the operation back on the rails to head home) Memories.
I’ve had lots of close calls with more deer and a few canine species over the years, but no more mayhem.
A critter strike should be something you’ve thought about if you operate in places where such events are possible. I wouldn’t stop a jet from a speed beyond 100 knots unless I was convinced that it had hit an engine and done serious damage. For a big jet, with nacelles way up high, that probably means I’m going flying, barring a very low-probability bank shot off the nose gear. With a 737 or equivalent intake height, the species matters: fox OK, deer bad. I shudder to think that a moose might get involved one day, but it's very possible with the Bambi huggers impeding the pre-emptive application of natural selection principles.
The coyotes are growing bigger these days too, methinks, but I do like real ale. Rat and twig bits? ;o)
regards
madtrap
In the spring of 1970 a Grumman Albatross from 442 (Transport and Rescue) Squadron was enroute back to home plate at CFB Comox on Vancouver Island from a search in the Terrace area (check your atlas for the British Columbia coast).
For reasons best known to himself, the Skipper (Captain Danger, but not to his face) decided that it would be a great idea to do a touch-and-go at Port Hardy, just to break up the evening flight. With dusk but a memory, we attempted to execute said touch-and-go (‘roller’ to you real ale types), but turned it into a stop when we executed a trespassing deer instead, and realized from the visual and sound cues that it had impacted something on the port side. Vancouver Island deer are a small sub-species and there was no chance it would have hit the engine on the high-winged Albert, but risk management (the current buzz-phrase for CDF) made stopping sound judgment with adequate runway left (unlike the heavy Canberra with rapidly diminishing options).
With the amphibious beast halted on the runway, and local traffic, if any, advised of our status on the aerodrome, the Skipper dispatched the Flight Engineer to investigate the event. When Marty went out the main door, he was carrying a green plastic garbage bag as well as his flashlight. (?? I was new and learning not to question local practice).
After what seemed a long time for a damage recce, and the Captain’s increasingly strident rhetorical queries as to the greasie’s whereabouts, Marty climbed back aboard carrying the plastic bag, from which protruded a pair of hooves. He got back on intercom and the Skipper asked if there was any damage. Marty announced that the forward area of the deer was a write-off, but that the hindquarters were just fine, thanks!
“I meant the f___ng airplane you a--h--e!”, said the boss in a fine demonstration of leadership in action.
“Oh! No sweat sir. The left main tire (tyre) caught him in the shoulder; not a mark on the hull, and the brake lines are OK.”
(more muttered invective from the left seat as we got the operation back on the rails to head home) Memories.
I’ve had lots of close calls with more deer and a few canine species over the years, but no more mayhem.
A critter strike should be something you’ve thought about if you operate in places where such events are possible. I wouldn’t stop a jet from a speed beyond 100 knots unless I was convinced that it had hit an engine and done serious damage. For a big jet, with nacelles way up high, that probably means I’m going flying, barring a very low-probability bank shot off the nose gear. With a 737 or equivalent intake height, the species matters: fox OK, deer bad. I shudder to think that a moose might get involved one day, but it's very possible with the Bambi huggers impeding the pre-emptive application of natural selection principles.
The coyotes are growing bigger these days too, methinks, but I do like real ale. Rat and twig bits? ;o)
regards
madtrap
PPRuNe Handmaiden
Lucas is known as the Prince of Darkness. 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Canberra Australia
Posts: 1,300
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
madtrap
How was the venison from the hindquarters?
Presume you laced it with liquid smoke.
Thought an experienced deer hunter was coming close to asking me to go and buy a can of striped paint when he said you must have a bottle of liquid smoke on hand when cooking venison!!
How was the venison from the hindquarters?
Presume you laced it with liquid smoke.
Thought an experienced deer hunter was coming close to asking me to go and buy a can of striped paint when he said you must have a bottle of liquid smoke on hand when cooking venison!!
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 20
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Milt
Marty never sprung for any of the critter. You’d be lucky to get 40# of meat off of what he collected out there that night. He did sling beer at our local watering hole though (we didn’t pay technicians that well).
The young officers were allowed to frequent such establishments while doing Squadron Duty Officer, just for the SAR call-out function; not the Station Orderly Officer. The one golden rule was that you had to be sober enough to initiate a call-out if stuff started to happen.
I was sitting there one night chatting up the lassies of the local education community (‘toolscreachers’ in the vernacular of the time), and as Marty plopped two more draft in front of me, he advised me that ‘Vancouver Rescue’ wanted to talk to me. I had left the “Elks” phone number with the Station operator, this being eons before the advent of cellular telephones.
The duty wonk at the Centre told me that a light private airplane had turned up missing, that the Comms search was nearing completion with nil results and that I should call the standby crew to the hangar for probable launch.
I essentially started a search from the local hotel pub before heading back to Ops to brief the crew.
It just isn’t that laid back anymore I don’t think.
Ciao
Madtrap
PS. I just marinate venison, elk or young moose in red wine and a lot of fresh herbs laced with garlic. Liquid smoke sounds like something that will eventually be found to be an environmental hazard ;o)
Marty never sprung for any of the critter. You’d be lucky to get 40# of meat off of what he collected out there that night. He did sling beer at our local watering hole though (we didn’t pay technicians that well).
The young officers were allowed to frequent such establishments while doing Squadron Duty Officer, just for the SAR call-out function; not the Station Orderly Officer. The one golden rule was that you had to be sober enough to initiate a call-out if stuff started to happen.
I was sitting there one night chatting up the lassies of the local education community (‘toolscreachers’ in the vernacular of the time), and as Marty plopped two more draft in front of me, he advised me that ‘Vancouver Rescue’ wanted to talk to me. I had left the “Elks” phone number with the Station operator, this being eons before the advent of cellular telephones.
The duty wonk at the Centre told me that a light private airplane had turned up missing, that the Comms search was nearing completion with nil results and that I should call the standby crew to the hangar for probable launch.
I essentially started a search from the local hotel pub before heading back to Ops to brief the crew.
It just isn’t that laid back anymore I don’t think.
Ciao
Madtrap
PS. I just marinate venison, elk or young moose in red wine and a lot of fresh herbs laced with garlic. Liquid smoke sounds like something that will eventually be found to be an environmental hazard ;o)
Prof. Airport Engineer
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Australia (mostly)
Posts: 726
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Kangaroos can be a real nuisance, and they are big enough to do a lot of damage if you hit them at speed.
The problem is worse in the dry season because an airport is one of the few places in rural areas where there is still some grass, and hungry kangaroos try to make the most of it. In Oz, airport operators are required to minimise the risk of planes hitting kangaroos or other animals. The responsibility is still on pilots to make sure there are no kangaroos on the strip before they land, but at night-time that is pretty hard to do. So an airport has to shoot problem kangaroos, and patrol the runway before regular services land and take off.
I was inspecting Meekatharra Airport one year (in Western Australia). The grass at the terminal was lovingly watered by the groundsman and it was the only green patch for hundreds of kilometres. It was especially dry that year, and the kangaroos were coming from all over to eat the airport grass. A couple of aircraft hit kangaroos, and the previous night, an RFDS plane had belted one and suffered quite a bit of damage. So I was elected to go roo-shooting that night. It might have been better not to have whiled away the first part of the evening in the pub beforehand, but that is being wise after the event.
After the pub, we weaved our way back to the airport in the airport inspector's car, which was fitted with a full length roof rack for carrying survey gear. I sat on the roof rack, with the shotgun, while the inspector drove the car all over the airport trying to find kangaroos. We eventually flushed a couple out, and started to chase them. The car was bouncing up and down like crazy as we drove through the scrub, out across the runway, and into the scrub on the other side. I was hanging onto the roof rack with one hand, and the shotgun with the other as we raced through the night with the only illumination being the car's headlights. Took aim, and let fly with both barrels - missed - reloaded and fired - missed again. Too much movement and probably too much beer. The car was catching up to the kangaroos, and although they jumped faster and faster, we drove faster and faster.
By now the car was literally on the tail of the kangaroos and their tails were hitting the front bumper as they jumped. The airport inspector was yelling at me to shoot again and shoot straighter, I was trying to hold on to the car and reload at the same time, the car was bouncing and down as we roared around and over the runway again, and I only just managed to aim down at the kangaroo which was about a metre in front of me by now, and then I fired. Big blast and crash. I had shot the top of the radiator off the car (blast), the kangaroo got an enormous fright at the noise and stopped so we promptly ran into it with the car and killed it (crash), and of course that smashed the rest of the front of the car.
Thank goodness we hit the kangaroo. It was lot easier to explain front-end repairs to the car due to hitting a kangaroo, then it would have been to explain the repairs because I had shot the front of the car off. Gave the kangaroo carcase to the panel beater as dog-meat, in exchange for filling out the paperwork obligingly . . .
The problem is worse in the dry season because an airport is one of the few places in rural areas where there is still some grass, and hungry kangaroos try to make the most of it. In Oz, airport operators are required to minimise the risk of planes hitting kangaroos or other animals. The responsibility is still on pilots to make sure there are no kangaroos on the strip before they land, but at night-time that is pretty hard to do. So an airport has to shoot problem kangaroos, and patrol the runway before regular services land and take off.
I was inspecting Meekatharra Airport one year (in Western Australia). The grass at the terminal was lovingly watered by the groundsman and it was the only green patch for hundreds of kilometres. It was especially dry that year, and the kangaroos were coming from all over to eat the airport grass. A couple of aircraft hit kangaroos, and the previous night, an RFDS plane had belted one and suffered quite a bit of damage. So I was elected to go roo-shooting that night. It might have been better not to have whiled away the first part of the evening in the pub beforehand, but that is being wise after the event.
After the pub, we weaved our way back to the airport in the airport inspector's car, which was fitted with a full length roof rack for carrying survey gear. I sat on the roof rack, with the shotgun, while the inspector drove the car all over the airport trying to find kangaroos. We eventually flushed a couple out, and started to chase them. The car was bouncing up and down like crazy as we drove through the scrub, out across the runway, and into the scrub on the other side. I was hanging onto the roof rack with one hand, and the shotgun with the other as we raced through the night with the only illumination being the car's headlights. Took aim, and let fly with both barrels - missed - reloaded and fired - missed again. Too much movement and probably too much beer. The car was catching up to the kangaroos, and although they jumped faster and faster, we drove faster and faster.
By now the car was literally on the tail of the kangaroos and their tails were hitting the front bumper as they jumped. The airport inspector was yelling at me to shoot again and shoot straighter, I was trying to hold on to the car and reload at the same time, the car was bouncing and down as we roared around and over the runway again, and I only just managed to aim down at the kangaroo which was about a metre in front of me by now, and then I fired. Big blast and crash. I had shot the top of the radiator off the car (blast), the kangaroo got an enormous fright at the noise and stopped so we promptly ran into it with the car and killed it (crash), and of course that smashed the rest of the front of the car.
Thank goodness we hit the kangaroo. It was lot easier to explain front-end repairs to the car due to hitting a kangaroo, then it would have been to explain the repairs because I had shot the front of the car off. Gave the kangaroo carcase to the panel beater as dog-meat, in exchange for filling out the paperwork obligingly . . .
Guest
Posts: n/a
The best I´ve done is hitting a large seagull on a 737. The poor bastard used the windshield wiper bolt as a rectal probe, grinning at me and flapping (dead of course) througout the approach. My F/O had to take over and land because of this.
Quite funny afterwards.
Quite funny afterwards.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Canada
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Critter strike
Except for the occasional arctic tern wacked and sliced by the big flat paddles of CV580 props coming out of Longyear, Spitsbergen, the only interesting hit I've ever had was a [big] bunny rabbit while night landing at EBBR. The bunny just raced down the centreline to get away from us and for once I was on the centreline. Loud bang under the floorboards and the centreline went dark. Beggar took out our taxi light. What a stinking mess!
More interesting though is the adventure of a friend of mine who had to report a lobster strike. Madtrap will back me up on this. Seems our Tracker jock did one ID pass too many on some poor hard working fishermen while patrolling the East Coast and the annoyed lobsterman threw one up in front of him as he saw the a/c coming back for yet one more low-low pass alongside his fishing boat. For those of you who aren't familiar, Mrs. Grumman builds a solid airplane. A market-size lobster will only make a small dent in the nose cap at 150 kts.
More interesting though is the adventure of a friend of mine who had to report a lobster strike. Madtrap will back me up on this. Seems our Tracker jock did one ID pass too many on some poor hard working fishermen while patrolling the East Coast and the annoyed lobsterman threw one up in front of him as he saw the a/c coming back for yet one more low-low pass alongside his fishing boat. For those of you who aren't familiar, Mrs. Grumman builds a solid airplane. A market-size lobster will only make a small dent in the nose cap at 150 kts.
Last edited by LNAV-VNAV; 2nd Nov 2004 at 01:40.
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 20
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Just one more then. There were a lot of birds in the maritime environment, and every once in a while you’d whack one while concentrating on not whacking something larger (like a helicopter) or more visible, like a flare from one of the east block vessels. If you were lucky the bird was a tern or gull; pelicans, and albatrosses, were known to hurt people and machines badly.
Satch was sitting in the greenhouse nose of the Argus on one patrol, minding his own business, when a seagull managed to miss the tempered glass center bit and enter through the adjacent Perspex.
The by-this-point-deceased gull’s disintegrating mass struck the toe of Satch’s boot with enough force to break his toe therein. (In the nose seat one’s feet were normally braced in stirrups that reminded women of totally different experiences).
The bird continued to disintegrate, filling the nose compartment with blood, feathers, offal, etc, in an explosive manner, disconnecting the hero’s helmet communications cord and stunning him somewhat. (A similar effect could be achieved with certain beverages, but it took a bit longer).
The kindly old Commander on the Flight Deck of the mighty patrol aircraft, keenly aware that the gull had hit the nose, called on intercom to assure himself that Satch was OK. After trying both the normal and tactical intercom modes with nil response, he grew concerned and directed another crewmember to check on their boy.
The nose compartment was forward of a “water-tight” door, a sliding/locking device designed to fool one into thinking that the airplane could be ditched safely without a water-hammer sluicing all concerned out the mad boom at the other end.
When the other lad whipped this door open, the airflow through the broken Perspex was able to continue into the unpressurized hull at approximately the TAS of the airframe, and the door-opener wore a great deal of the matter that had previously been a seagull. Blood was immediately identified as one of the components of this mess, and the hasty assumption was made that this blood belonged to the human occupant of the compartment. With concern mounting for his welfare, he was unceremoniously unstrapped and dragged from his seat to receive either first aid or the last rites, suffering more bruises at the hands of his colleagues than he had sustained up to that point in the avian assault.
All this to say, if you’re around birds a lot and busy working, and your airplane doesn’t have NESA heated windows to absorb lots of the energy, wear something substantial to protect your eyes and face from pop-up targets. Despite all the fun some of us are having, there’s a self-protection thread running through this string, one that it doesn’t hurt to refresh from time to time.
I learned a lot about flying whilst listening in bars, but ‘Air Clues’ won’t publish any of those stories.
LNAV-VNAV, if your wheels are on the carrier deck, however briefly, when you hit the other airplane, is that a mid-air or a manoeuvering accident?
Satch was sitting in the greenhouse nose of the Argus on one patrol, minding his own business, when a seagull managed to miss the tempered glass center bit and enter through the adjacent Perspex.
The by-this-point-deceased gull’s disintegrating mass struck the toe of Satch’s boot with enough force to break his toe therein. (In the nose seat one’s feet were normally braced in stirrups that reminded women of totally different experiences).
The bird continued to disintegrate, filling the nose compartment with blood, feathers, offal, etc, in an explosive manner, disconnecting the hero’s helmet communications cord and stunning him somewhat. (A similar effect could be achieved with certain beverages, but it took a bit longer).
The kindly old Commander on the Flight Deck of the mighty patrol aircraft, keenly aware that the gull had hit the nose, called on intercom to assure himself that Satch was OK. After trying both the normal and tactical intercom modes with nil response, he grew concerned and directed another crewmember to check on their boy.
The nose compartment was forward of a “water-tight” door, a sliding/locking device designed to fool one into thinking that the airplane could be ditched safely without a water-hammer sluicing all concerned out the mad boom at the other end.
When the other lad whipped this door open, the airflow through the broken Perspex was able to continue into the unpressurized hull at approximately the TAS of the airframe, and the door-opener wore a great deal of the matter that had previously been a seagull. Blood was immediately identified as one of the components of this mess, and the hasty assumption was made that this blood belonged to the human occupant of the compartment. With concern mounting for his welfare, he was unceremoniously unstrapped and dragged from his seat to receive either first aid or the last rites, suffering more bruises at the hands of his colleagues than he had sustained up to that point in the avian assault.
All this to say, if you’re around birds a lot and busy working, and your airplane doesn’t have NESA heated windows to absorb lots of the energy, wear something substantial to protect your eyes and face from pop-up targets. Despite all the fun some of us are having, there’s a self-protection thread running through this string, one that it doesn’t hurt to refresh from time to time.
I learned a lot about flying whilst listening in bars, but ‘Air Clues’ won’t publish any of those stories.
LNAV-VNAV, if your wheels are on the carrier deck, however briefly, when you hit the other airplane, is that a mid-air or a manoeuvering accident?
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Canada
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Hmm… Lemme think about that. You refer to our old buddy who now works for Mrs. Bombardier, teaching young sprogs the finer points of RJ handling. You understand, of course, that I wasn’t part of that event, just an innocent by-stander but therefore a witness.
That’s 35 years ago this month but if memory serves it was a dark and dirty night in mid-Atlantic with a lot of confused deck motion and already a few bolters and wave-offs. This light fleet carrier (CVL), sister-ship to Karel Doorman, Melbourne, Cinqo de Mayo and others, had a lively motion in a seaway. So our friend’s line-up on final is more axial than centered on the angled-deck, the ship pitches and the wires drop away under him as the Grumman S2F [the Stoof] comes across the landing area, momentary touch down too far forward as the full power comes on and he encounters his next obstacle: the forward deck park where previous landers are resting.
I remember the bits of sheet metal flying through the air and live ordonance from the under-wing racks rolling around the deck but our friends kept on flying with a good portion of the right wing missing. As I said in a previous post, Mrs. Grumman builds a solid airplane. Bingo fuel’s long gone though and with some serious controllability issues, he can’t bring it back on board so he ended up ditching at night alongside one Her Majesty’s Cdn destroyers who were gracious enough to turn on some lights for the occasion. The crew got picked up by the lifeboat, brought aboard the destroyer and promptly served a sufficient amount of pusser’s rum to ensure a relaxed state of mind.
So in answer ot your query, Madtrap, I think it was neither a mid-air collision nor a maneuvering accident but a clear case of controlled flight into a [several] ground-based obstacle[s]. So there we were, witnesses to a CFIT event long before the term got coined – although there is some room for debate about the ”controlled” part in this case.
Regards
That’s 35 years ago this month but if memory serves it was a dark and dirty night in mid-Atlantic with a lot of confused deck motion and already a few bolters and wave-offs. This light fleet carrier (CVL), sister-ship to Karel Doorman, Melbourne, Cinqo de Mayo and others, had a lively motion in a seaway. So our friend’s line-up on final is more axial than centered on the angled-deck, the ship pitches and the wires drop away under him as the Grumman S2F [the Stoof] comes across the landing area, momentary touch down too far forward as the full power comes on and he encounters his next obstacle: the forward deck park where previous landers are resting.
I remember the bits of sheet metal flying through the air and live ordonance from the under-wing racks rolling around the deck but our friends kept on flying with a good portion of the right wing missing. As I said in a previous post, Mrs. Grumman builds a solid airplane. Bingo fuel’s long gone though and with some serious controllability issues, he can’t bring it back on board so he ended up ditching at night alongside one Her Majesty’s Cdn destroyers who were gracious enough to turn on some lights for the occasion. The crew got picked up by the lifeboat, brought aboard the destroyer and promptly served a sufficient amount of pusser’s rum to ensure a relaxed state of mind.
So in answer ot your query, Madtrap, I think it was neither a mid-air collision nor a maneuvering accident but a clear case of controlled flight into a [several] ground-based obstacle[s]. So there we were, witnesses to a CFIT event long before the term got coined – although there is some room for debate about the ”controlled” part in this case.
Regards
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: 8000 feet of cabin altitude
Posts: 543
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Heard this in a pub:
Can't remember the operator but an A340-300 out of Jo'burg had a slight surge in the number 4 engine on the t/o roll. Didn't happen again and all readings were normal so the t/o continued. On the ground at the other end the eng. on his walk around found bits of hair and fur on the number 4 cowling. Turns out a rabbit hit it!!!
bit of a super bunny!
Can't remember the operator but an A340-300 out of Jo'burg had a slight surge in the number 4 engine on the t/o roll. Didn't happen again and all readings were normal so the t/o continued. On the ground at the other end the eng. on his walk around found bits of hair and fur on the number 4 cowling. Turns out a rabbit hit it!!!
bit of a super bunny!
