bird strike

[ted]

Bird Strike.

The Beech Baron was cruising at 185 knots when it struck a goose.
Apparently the pilot was injured but able to land the aircraft safely.

[1973911s]

That must have been one large goose!

[KevinP73]

From the blood on his seat it looks as though the pilot suffered a head injury in the accident.

no freakin way

[Jeff Higgins]

This made the rounds in the aerospace world a few weeks ago. Word had it the pilot was alone in the left seat and escaped without injury. And yes, a goose (even a small one for that matter) will do this to an airplane. I've seen it too many times.

[Joeaksa]

I have flown for McDonnell Douglas, Boeing and finally Bombardier and been around this more than I ever wanted.

There is a phrase for this in the industry... its called "shredded Tweet"...

Here are some pics:



Some more:



Where it came through the cockpit:



Have got more but you get my drift. Birds can really ruin your day.

JoeA

[bryanthompson]

holy shat! Did you guys see the MythBusters where they shot the frozen/thawed chickens at the airplane glass?

[Les Paul]

Years ago the wife and I were on a 737 coming out of Houston. We were just about off the ground when it sucked several big ass birds in the engine right out my window. There was a tremendous boom and we touched back down. The pilot obviously knew he had enough runway and said "ladies and gentlemen, we've had mechanical failure and will return to our gate". OK

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
holy shat! Did you guys see the MythBusters where they shot the frozen/thawed chickens at the airplane glass?

There is a Mil Spec that calls for an air cannon device designed for propelling birds of specific mass to a certain velocity that is supposed to initate this problem. They shoot the birds at the canopy. This is a real thing. I worked on cast acrylate projects years ago and we had to meet the specs for the F16, F18 canopies. Cast acrylate actually performs different than extruded acrylate.

[carreradpt]

It wasn't a goose it was a midair with another aircraft. Don't remember the specifics, it was a few months back. The pilot was injured as I recall.

[klaucke]

I was once delayed over 12 hours because the plane I was supposed to travel on struck a sea gull, and left a sizable dent in the wing (at the least basketball size). After all that time, the plane was deamed safe and off we flew, my boy scout troop had the whole plane to our selves as well.

[rcecale]

I spent 20 years working on military aircraft in the USMC. I've seen my fair share of birdstrikes. The worst had to be an F-4 that took off out of MCAS El Toro through a flock of seagulls.

Oddly enough, even tough this happened on takeoff, the pilot, for whatever reason, flew the jet down to Yuma, AZ. When we got there to do the repair work, you could literally see daylight through the engine vanes. It was nasty!!!

Birdstrikes stink really bad and can cause loads of damage to an airframe... of course, they're not very healthy for the bird either...

Randy

[Seahawk]

All pilots live in fear of bird strikes (passengers should, as well!). I've been very fortunate to have had only two so far in nearly twenty years of flying.
The first was in San Diego, mid 80's...I was working the mountain helo pads north of Tecate, Mexico in an SH-60B, transitioning from a high hover to foward flight DOWN the mountain when a medium sized hawk flew low to high right in front of my grill and impacted the main rotor mast. We felt the shudder and made an emergency landing at Brown Field, about five miles away. Those were five mile long miles over very rough terrain. We landed and shut down...it became apparent that our relative lack of forward airspeed and the rotational forces of the rotor system prevented any real damage...in retrospect (and from terra firma) I felt bad for the hawk.
The second occurance was on night vision goggles...and I never even knew it happened! I was working with navy SEALS to develop tactics in the then new HH-60H. We were doing low level insertions and extractions at Fort AP Hill in Virginia, lots of fun stuff, both low and fast and nap of the earth. Great to be young and stupid.
After flying back to the squadron, taxing to the line and shutting down, my plane captain started his routine post flight inspection of the helo. Before I could pack all my pilot trash and get out of the aircraft, the plane captain jumped off the 60 and asked me if I noticed anything "unusual" about the aircrafts performance.
"Why, no", I answered.
"Come take a look, El Tee."
Uh oh.
What he showed me left me cold: On the INSIDE of the engine intake was a wide, long streak of blood and bird feathers...I'd obviously ingested a fowl of some reknowned.
I still bless the engineer who developed the Inlet Particle Separater (IPS) that allowed the GE T700-401C jet engine to have Thanksgiving dinner and still matriculate me down the field!
My co-pilot and me never knew...how cool is that.

[304065]

Scary.

I find that predatory birds, when threatened, usually seem to dive, not climb. So I usually climb.

There are a hell of a lot of birds out where I keep my a/c, a few close calls, but fortunately no strikes. Those pics show what kind of damage could be done. . . even though those a/c traveling a lot faster than my 153 MPH Vne, I still don't wanna find out!

[kach22i]

Freaky pictures, I did not expect to see this.

Have you guys all seen the "Deer v's Turboprop" pictures?

While up in a glider this summer, the pilot spotted a thermal by observing a hawk near us......................don't think at glider speeds there would be much damage if we hit one (I hope).