birdstrike

[beepbeep]

This looks scary!

[Gogar]

So, that's a lot of small birds, right?

I guess if it were one large bird it would just be a big red and black streak out the back?

[slodave]

Looks like one bird. It hit just under the nose and was sliced by the front landing gear door it also struck an antenna just behind the front gear area. From there - poof, explosion of feathers.

EDIT: OK, it does look like a bunch of small birds. There are blood marks on the inboard side of the left engine.

[pwd72s]

Looks like starlings...

[Bill Douglas]

Black colored cessna.

[Zef]

Happen every day...

[Joeaksa]

Even worse to clean up. You start with the brown stain in the pilots seats then work outside...

[rick-l]

Would most of those birds go through the fan or compressor when they hit the front blades? How big a bird can you hit with no damage?

[TechnoViking]

Originally Posted by rick-l

Would most of those birds go through the fan or compressor when they hit the front blades? How big a bird can you hit with no damage?

I heard the engine manufacturers throw dead turkeys into them as a test.

[daepp]

I have heard the FAA has a design spec for launching FROZEN birds at the intake.

[RPKESQ]

Originally Posted by DAEpperson

I have heard the FAA has a design spec for launching FROZEN birds at the intake.

Although they use a "bird" canon to launch dead birds into aircraft for testing, they are not frozen. Frozen birds are an urban myth.

[Seahawk]

I've been involved in a few bird strikes. My favorite:

Night vision goggle hop working with some Navy SEALS. We were doing the flight test of the Navy's HH-60. The mission was to fly out of Pax River NAS with the SEALS to Fort AP Hill, insert the SEALS, loiter for an hour low over the Potomac and return to extract.

Great flight, very challenging low work...the tactics and timing are very precise but we hit our marks and the flight came off near perfect.

We get back to the flight line and shut down around 0200.

Since I was the aircraft commander, I head to maintenance to fill out all the paperwork. My co-pilot and the Plane Captain (PC) start the post flight inspection.

I make it about 40 steps from the 60 when the PC calls out to me, "LT, you got to come see this!"

The inlets for the T700 jet engines that power the helo are high on the 60, one on each side. The inlet runs about three feet.

Inside the left inlet are three blood streaks, each about three inches in diameter.

We had flown into a flock of small birds without ever seeing them on the goggles!

What saved the motor was a device called the inlet particle separator (IPS) that is meant to take trash that get sucked into the engine during unrefined area landings and expel it before it hits the compressor section. The IPS is a great design!

[Joeaksa]

They shoot both thawed and frozen birds into the engines. Been at tests where its done and depending on the test can use either.

How they go in depends on the size of the bird and type of engine. Most big turbofan engines can take a lot before they puke. Thank God.

Have had quite a few birdstrikes on the planes I fly and so far they have just ingested them and kept on going. A few required new fan blades and an inspection but thats it. More of them hit on the fuselage, wing or engine cowling. Its part of flying.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

My wife had to design an ice ingestion ramp for the AS900. Apparently you can't fling ice with the same mechanism you use to fling dead chickens.

[RPKESQ]

I can find no verifiable evidence to show frozen birds are used in these tests. Yes, the testers do purchase frozen birds, but thaw them before use.

I have looked through the engineering archives of the USAF and NASA and found nothing.

I would appreciate any evidence for the intentional use of frozen birds in bird strike tests for military or commercial aircraft testing.

Here is a typical link to see that explains only non-frozen birds are used.

BAM! The science of bird and aircraft collisions - National Research Council Canada

[jyl]

I'm not doubting that frozen birds are sometimes used, if Joe says so, but I wonder why it makes "sense" to do so. After all, an engine in flight is never going to ingest a frozen bird, is it?

[quicksix]

gonna guess mass

[spuggy]

Originally Posted by RPKESQ

I can find no verifiable evidence to show frozen birds are used in these tests.

Snopes is your friend.

I had read this in email first time around (long before Snopes appeared) and found it fairly convincing. Interesting to discover it was rubbish.

http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp