one of my instructors (a dc-10 driver) loves telling us his wartime stories of Entebbe. You know the airport that was raided by israeli special forces in the 0's. He says that the final is right above a bird sanctuary and on average they !!!! about 10 birds per approach.
Do any of you guys actually pic off the bird remnants and send them off to I.B.I.S. as you are supposed to do, or do you leave the remnants and hope it washes off when you fly into rain.

Took a bird in an F6 Hunter at 420kts at low level. I recall a rush of white and a helluva bang on the lower left side of the canopy then ................nothing.
Eased the jet up to 2500ft and checked the donk. With cruise power set for 420 at LL I was getting 250kts at 2500, thought OOPS !!
Landed at Warton (BAe airfield wher they made Tornados) and when groundcrew were shaking heads etc after shutdown I realised that something was wrong.
The bird had hit the canopy, gone down in to the intake, but hit the splitter wall on the intake and separtated, pushing the wall into the intake. The outboard bit had gone up into the intake and peeled it back like a yoghourt carton lid before dividing itself again part going in to the wing and the remainder spreading itself across the first stage. Totally f**cked the engine.
The jet never flew again; it was taken aprt at Warton and repatriated to Valley by road but they lost some bits en route.

Hope this doesn't put everyone off their dinner, as a loadmaster/flight mechanic on B707s I once spent a very happy hot afternoon in East Africa removing the remains of a dog that decided to cross the runway as we were landing, from the L/H main gear. Extremely pleasant with very hot brakes. Had to drink several Tusker beers to take away the smell of cooked hound!

I've taken out a seagull, whacked it with the right prop in the flare. I wouldn't have known it was there if the aircraft owner, sitting in the right seat, hadn't been gibbering at me not to try to dodge it.

Here's an account of a pelican taking out a 172XP.

<A HREF="http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/mia/lnarr_94A179.htm" TARGET="_blank">http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/mia/lnarr_94A179.htm</A>

How about this?
I was flight mechanic on a Bell HTL-1 (early model 47) and we were returning to base in Traverse City, Michigan from a stint on an Ice Breaker on Lake Superior. We had a leaky tail rotor gearbox so every fifty miles or so we would land and I would fill up the gearbox with of all things, fish oil. Very smelly stuff. My pilot, Dave Gershowitz, who incidentally was the first pilot to hit 1000 hours, was easily freaked out. While flying in the left seat I was holding the oil can between my legs and reading a map. We were about twenty minutes out when Dave saw a bear. He very excitedly told me to look. When I leaned over, my legs spread and the can hit the deck. Dave thought there was something wrong with the tail rotor gearbox and he made a quick turn looking for a spot to land. In the process of making his maneuver he really made a hard over. On that particular helicopter type when there was an excessive side load on the mast it would cause the planetary gears to really growl. Upon hearing that, he really wanted to get on the ground. He picked out a landing spot in front of what we later found out was a veterinarians office. To get from where we were to that landing spot we had to pass over a turkey farm and in the process we made the turkeys stampede and over 100 birds were killed in the pileup at the fence surrounding the turkey farm. Oh yes, in the process of landing, we took out the vets' telephone line.




[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 16 December 2000).]

ShotOne,
That story about the cat in the cannon is true!! The cat was adopted by one of the flight shed guys and used to sleep in the Hangar. Needless to say the guy who cared for it was absolutely gutted-----not quite as gutted as tiddles though!!

BANG!

http://www.aviationpics.de/military/P0000460.jpg

Yep, a birdstrike.

Took a bird down number 3 just after V1 at MTOW in Bahrein whilst working uo for the Great Arabian Ar$e Kicking Party. Shut it down, dumped gas, got the groundcrew to prep. the spare, landed, swapped jets, took off again, made the RV with the fighters.
But the best tale I have was as a student at Leeming in '74. It was early autumn and we noticed an unusual smell in the Ops room. As the days went by it got worse and worse; finally it got too much and we decided to find out what the hell was causing it. A suspect package was discovered in the QFIs in-tray; it was addressed to the Flight Safety Officer, who had been on 2 weeks' leave. In those days you had to parcel up the remains of a birdstrike and send them off to the FSO who was supposed to fill out the paperwork and send it all off to the Min of Ag and Fish. The FSO reappeared on Monday and announced that someone had indeed hit a tern and had sent it to him. "Tern?" said the Chief Instructor, "tern? It smelt more like someone had sent you a !!!!!"

Many years ago a BEA Vanguard taking of from what was then Glasgow Renfrew airport hit a flock of birds and lost 3 out of its 4 engines (RR Tynes) the crew managed to relight a couple of engines which ran badly for a short time and made a quick circuit and landed safely. Capt was Dennis Clifton P2 Ted Dunn P3 A N Other. All three got Queens Commendations

An E-3 went down after takeoff at Elemendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska killing all on board. Very sad. They hit a lot of Canadian Geese at rotation. In the post-accident pictures of the runway it was covered with dead birds.

In my personal experience there has been two times I have had serious aircraft damage from bird strikes.

1. Jet Commander, back in the mid-70's landing at KTEB (Teterboro N.J.), I took a seagull in the left flap. Had to replace the flap due to the damage.

2. Boeing 727, a couple of years ago on takeoff from KLWB (Lewisburg W.V.), I hit some type of bird just after rotation, didn't know it at the the time. After landing at KMDT (Harrisburg PA.) we had trouble retracting the leading edge devices.
When we got out and looked at the right wing we could see where a bird had hit right where the #5 and #6 leading edge slats join. Had to replace both slats and some of the tracks works. Took two days.

I have a few more bird strikes, but except of the mess, no damage. (knock on wood)

[This message has been edited by con-pilot (edited 20 December 2000).]

[This message has been edited by con-pilot (edited 20 December 2000).]

Hit a buzzard in a UH1-H in San Salvador. caved in the window. Lesson learned? Wear the flight helmet and not the NY baseball cap and cool Vaurnets. And watch where you are going while flying over the garbage dump.
j

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For a plane to fly well, it must be beautiful.

— Marcel Dassault

[This message has been edited by before landing check list (edited 21 December 2000).]

spooky
cool dude, 400 KTS below 10,000 and after T/O. I need to get out of the 8 and go to the 72. And reverserdeployed, you are copying Chuck Yeagers quote in this forum.
j

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For a plane to fly well, it must be beautiful.

— Marcel Dassault

[This message has been edited by before landing check list (edited 20 December 2000).]

[This message has been edited by before landing check list (edited 21 December 2000).]

Citation Excel landing at CYKF (Waterloo, Canada) hit a deer on landing at dusk. Leading edge totally smashed to the tune of $1,000,000 (CDN) damage. But the a/c is flying again.

On T/O from Daka in Bangladesh: Just after passing 110 knots, saw a bird (about the size of a Piper Cherokee) trying to cross the runway from right to left.
It passed down the right side of the fuselage and just as I thought we missed it, the airplane shook and loud bang was heard.
(B-747-200)
Stopped, taxied off and shut down. Flight mechanic inspected and sure enough blood, feathers and damaged fan blades in number 3 engine.
Spent a few days in lovely Daka while they fixed it. Thanks birdie.

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Men, this is no drill...

One moonlit night in southern China we were transitting at 500 ft amsl. Suddenly the city lights outside went out as a VERY big bird hit my aircraft just above the windscreen. I landed shortly afterwards to find lots of blood, guts and feathers up and over the top deck but no damage.

I suspect the bird was a Black-eared Kite, commonly known as a S**te-Hawk. It also scared the S**te out of us.

Any guesses where my user name came from?

[This message has been edited by ShyTorque (edited 24 December 2000).]

Before Landing Check List - you're right!

Rotters nicking my signature.

Let me revert back to a wonderful line from my favourite disaster movie in which a private pilot uses a 747 for target practice...

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"Something hit us - there's nobody left to fly the plane!!"

:)

I had several bird stikes before,usually south of England. The one that nearly killed me was not the bird. It was the handling pilot beside me. He over reacted and pulled the control hard back trying to avoid the bloody seagull somewhere about 100 yards sideway. I am sure he exceeded the G load limit of the a/c. I could feel my body was behind me.

A family friend of mine, now retired, hit a herd of cows in the flare at night while landing in Nagpur, India. The incident happened about 20-odd years ago. A/c was an Indian airlines B737-200. Almost touched down, or had just touched down, can't remember now, when he saw around 5 cows running across. The port wing hit the cow(s)and all leading edge slats and the wing were damaged. Upon leaving the runway, a/c had lost all hydraulic fluids and there was no steering, braking, etc. He then cut both engines and was coasting without directional control, until the a/c slowed down and finally came to a halt, with the nosewheel hitting the ledge of an underground tank. It was a water sump, and he said that he had fired both engines out and was scared that the nose might fall into the tank, probably causing havoc or fire with the avionics bay if it went in. But by sheer luck, he mentioned, the nose wheel hit the ledge at one of the 4 corners, and so they were very fortunate, the a/c did not nose into the tank.

Quite a story.

Had a couple of vultures come through the disc while hover taxying. The first one seemed to attack the a/c but was suitably blended and strewn far and wide. His mate flew in small circles above trying to work out where his friend had gone to, then quickly began to learn rotary PoF theory as he became part of the induced flow. He seemed to descend in slow motion, flapping furiously to get away (like a cartoon) before being belted and flung about 100 yards accross the pan. As I landed, coincidentally, on the spot next to his body, I was amazed to see him get up and walk off, rather sheepishly, with one wing neatly severed at the shoulder. a couple of hangar boys caught it and announced later "he's sleeping now".

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Another day in paradise

Had several, one of which going into CDG a few years ago on a 737-200. The bird went straight through the compressor stages and the smell of roasted whatever it was spread through the aircraft - lovely! Just coming up to lunchtime as well.

To all:

Bird and mammal strikes are becoming one of the high priority safety issues for the coming year.

I am involved in writing and production of a book for Transport Canada on this issue and my researched have turned up some interesting points.

Current very conservative estimates indicate that wildlife strikes cost the industry in North America in excess of 500 million dollars.

The most interesting point is that the number of bird strikes with waterfowl is increasing dramatically. these birds are in many cases larger than the wieghts that aircraft and engines are certified to withstand. What is also interesting is the number of encounters where more than one engine is being damaged. Increasing dramatically!

As a pilot the best strategy (and the one I follow when flying the A320) is to climb or descend as rapidly as possible at the lowest safe speed through the bird rich altitudes. 99% of bird strikes occur below 10,000 ft. Migratory waterfowl regularly fly between 2,000 and 10,000 agl, the data proves it. Bird populations, in particular high risk species like geese, are increasing at incredible rates. Bird impact force increases as the square of the speed (double the weight four times the force). This might want a number of you to rethink speeding up above 250 kts below 10,000 ft.

There are some really spectacular pictures available. Take the time and have a look.

If you want more information check out the Transport Canada website www.tc.gc.ca.

Watch the birdie.

P.S. True story... Student pilot strikes bird on downwind leg, requests immediate landing. Tower controller asks if he requires emergency services. Student pilot replies, "No it's alright the bird is dead".

Flying in a Baron I saw three pigeons coming straight at me while taking off from Southampton. One swerved to the right, two to the left, and we've hit at least one of them with the props, since I saw feathers on the right. I saw them coming so it didn't really surprise me and since there was nothing wrong with the temperature or any vibrations, we continued to our destination. (training flight, no pax). Since pigeons aren't very big, we figured they didn't have caused any damage. Upon arrivel, we notified maintainance. The next day they told me they had found a fried pigeon under the cowling of the LEFT engine. So it were actually two pigeons. Can you imagine? Such a small bird passing the props and entering the engine via a relative small hole? What are the odds? I figured we were actually lucky it didn't damage the engine.

JBravo

Had a good one back in 1993 landing in Prestwick in a DC8-73. Just as i rotated the nose in the flare a pair of Skylarks flew in to one of the two air cycle machine inlets on the nose of the aircraft (about 4 x 6 inch area). The wise and senior aircraft commander accused me of aiming for them, just to get a wonderful night in the Caledonian Hotel!

On a serious note if you are coming towards birds and you have the time to observe them you can tell the relative size of the bird by the frequency of wing flap movements - big bird long slow wing flaps, small birds the ooposite. This might prepare you for the magnitude of the splat.

The best strategy to maneuver to avoid birds is to pull up (don't stall!).

The above two pieces of information are from research work by many respected biologists and are contained in the the new Transport Canada bird strike book "Sharing the Skies" to be published later this year. A great book for all the members of the industry.

And no I don't get any royalties!

Hit a seagull with a 125 coming out of Burke Lakefront once, went through the right engine. The smell of cooked seagull is enough to put one off KFC for awhile, I can tell you. The Garrett rep changed the engine and we went back to base. On the return to BKL four days later, hit another bloody gull just on rotation, right above the right windshield panel. Got a whole flock of snow buntings once on landing with a DC-3. We counted twenty three little blood spatters on the right side of the nose, as well as about a dozen more in the right engine.

I don't think there is any particular good way to avoid bird strike. It happens in a fraction of a second; pulling up the nose sounds like a quickiest way to change your flight path. However, observing the G limit of the a/c must be kept in mind. The well being of the pax is also a factor.

My first flight in a T-38, about 100 ft, I retract the gear and see a flock of birds pass very quickly by us accompanied by numerous "thuds" The fragile J-85's didn't burp..I tell my instructor that I think we took some birds, and he starts railing about how that was the sound of the gear retracting!! He then starts lecturing me about how I had approx 2 minutes of T-38 time and he had over 700 hours, and I should not question him, etc etc...great start with a guy who holds my future in his hands. As we block in, the crew chief starts pointing to us and a few others come by to look, blood and guts everywhere, and a required engine change on one engine!!! My instructor never apologized. Flying C-141's at 300 ft, I've must have had hundreds of bird strikes, we just wrote it up upon landing. Nowadays, the military is so cautious concerning birdstrikes that we have to land immediatley to inspect the aircraft!!! great policy if your finished with your training and want to land early!!!!

...so now you have quite a few birdstrike stories.
When are you broadcasting them to scare the s... out of your audience,hmm ?
...check your six, pullupnow.

What's it like? Pretty darned uncomfortable, if you're a bird...

I've had a couple of birdstrikes, and one foxstrike. That was on the T/O roll out of SEN in an EMB110 at night. I saw it and tried to lift the nosewheel over it - my skipper hadn't seen it and thought I had gone barmy, trying to rotate too early! Hit it a glancing blow, and it must have crawled off to die somewhere quieter, as the subsequent R/W inspection didn't find it.

Neither birstrike was much of an event - one in an Islander (NO, it didn't hit it from behind!) caught the nosegear leg. The other in an ATR72, hit just above the F/O's windscreen, no damage (to the aircraft) but much blood and guts scraped over the front of the fuselage.

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Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

pullupnow - yep quite a few! My audience hear plenty of scary stories everyday about my flying lessons. I've nearly landed on a a few of them whilst doing PFL's!

But seeing as the weather bulletin on my radio station is sponsored by Cardiff International Airport - I think that my paymasters would be a little upset at me telling all my listeners about the joys of birdstrikes!!

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"Something hit us - there's nobody left to fly the plane!!" AIRPORT '77

crashdive,
forgive me if i sound like a smartarse,
but on page one of this thread in your post
you mentioned "a/c walloped the bird on
the radome"
now i may be wrong but i didn't know that
birds had radomes, and if they did you
would think they would be able to see the
aircraft coming and avoid it.

I was once involved in clearing off the runway at LGW in TriStar and on arrival at destination found the remains of 7 seagulls in the gear and wing engines.
Someone shouted "BIRDS" and I recall seeing three faces very close to the pedestal close to V1!!
Saw a Twin Bonanza in Louisiana that got a swan after take-off in the dark. The windshield was gone and the guy was wearing most of it, UGH!!

One or two,

1. Large seagull expired all over the skippers windscreen rotating at MAD in a 737-200. Not pretty, lost the A system and had to land back in.

2. Same week, scottish seagull went headfirst into No.2 engine going into GLA, smelled a bit, had to nightstop!

For weeks there had been a very very large flock of birds hanging around this little grass strip that we were based at. No matter what you did ie drive ya car at them, through stuff at them, unleash the dogs on them......not one was ever caught / hurt and all would return to the grass seeds on the runway. They always seemed to get out of the way just in time..........

Until one cold sunrise.....

Taking off in a Partenavia, lights on etc etc As previous practice dictated, they would scatter at the last second. This time for some reason they did, but just as I was rotating.....sounded just like a wipper snipper.

Flew through the complete flock. Blood splatters on both wing leading edges, nose and sides, and all over the props and engines. From wing backwards was blood and guts, somehow right to the top of the vertical stab.

Almost pissed my pants laughing so hard (..I must be mentally deficient...), but trying to wash all the dried blood and guts off was something else!!!

Instant ace 4 times over!!! Tastes just like chicken......Partemafia 20 - flock 0

Had one in DUB last year, a gull just as we touched down (on 29) on the left hand side. We saw him/her/it lying there as we taxyed off and gave the guys a call. Off out the van went, and as he approached it, it stood up and flew off! Strangest thing I ever saw. How do you write that up in the log??!!

I had a bird strike me outside a kebab shop. She took exception to my extra hot chill sauce.

Do you guys in the UK, have to pick up the bits, put the remains in a bag and send them off to the birds & fisheries commision or something? I'm trying to rattle my brains if this is true or B/Sht. Think I remember seeing it in an Air Law book? Not sure...

GV

I've hit two birds, both in the Jetstream 31 when I was an FO on it. The first hit the Captain's windshield just before V1. I was looking at the airspeed indicator about to call V1 when he said **** and ducked almost below the glareshield. I saw a black bird hit the windshield square, leave NO mark, and bounce off left. He called the abort at V1 and we got it stopped, he was worried the bird had gone into #1. Inspection revealed a couple of feathers but not a dent or a bird setting a nest in the turbine. :-)

The second time another bird hit the Captain's window at 100 AGL on landing leaving a bloody hell of a mess. He passed the controls to me and we landed out of it. Again no apparent damage to anything.

The summary of my stories? Airline windshields do a very good job at stopping smaller birds and I attract windshield bird strikes (better than losing an engine to one though I suppose.)