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Anybody ever have a bird strike?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rbrady
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Nine birds and a five point buck. Top that Nancy.

Almost a double ace here. The one that woulda made 10 didn't count as we didn't hit it, it hit us. We were landing in a Warrior, heard a loud thunk, and on inspection found the bloody mess on top of the trailing edge of the flap. Our 'super' Warrior had been rear-ended by a sparrow!

I let the Jeep behind me hit the six-point buck, does that count? Mangled the bejeebers outta the Jeep, too. Deer 0 Jeep 0.
 
Hit a bird right at Vr one time in a beechjet. It splattered all over the window and it sort of freeze dried on the window while flying at FL 390. We asked the line guy to clean it off while we went to lunch and he was still working on it when we got back. He got a nice tip!
 
I got hit in the face by a bumblebee on my crotch rocket at about 110mph...125 kts for you ERAU dorks.

I never went to ERAU, but I don't think 110 mph is equal to 125 knots...
 
Almost hit a bald eagle about a year ago going into a small airport (C75) in central IL on the Illinois River. I was with a student on a downwind and I told her "watch out for that bird, lets climb at little." Before you know it, that eagle was right under our wing, with the look of death in it's eyes. I still feel like that thing and I stared at each other for a good 3-4 seconds (it was probably going just as fast as us in our 152!).
 
I had a bad one the day after the Comair Crash this year. Taking off from BWI, fully loaded in an MD88. Just as we hit VR my nose came of the ground and we started getting the worst compressor stall I have ever heard. In addition the plane was shaking violently! The Captain started to reduce power on the right engine, followed by autothrottle advance on the left engine. With right engine at idle, and left engine advancing the left engine started to compressor stall and shake the aircraft violently! F/As called the cockpit and reported smoke in the cabain. All of these events took place before 300'. We felt like the plane would fall apart if the left engine continued. The captain retarded the left engine just enough to lessen the vibration. We were very low, very slow and could not climb or gain A/S very quickly. We made a very wide circle back to land at BWI at around 500'. Upon landing we found birds all over the landing gear!. The right wing was covered in blood and feathers, and it looked like at least a dozen strikes to that wing. The right engine was just destroyed. The forward fan had every blade either missing, bent, or curled under. Fragments from the blades puched numerous holes in cowling but it was not uncontained. On the left side we found 2 blades broken and missing. It appears this flock was around 30-50 feet in the air. On the takeoff roll just as the Captain called VR my eyes naturally transitioned to the PFD for pitch guidence so I did not see the flock at all! The birds were starlings(sp?)
 
How about a dog strike!

Yup, hit a mangy mutt while taking off from the Russian built runway at Beni Suef, Egypt. I was just about to rotate and this sandy colored looking mutt appears almost instantly in front of the aircraft. Schwacked it good with the nose gear! Left the gear down, popped up to Low Key and did a quick throttle check; everything worked fine so I burned down just a little fuel circling at High Key and landed uneventfully. Boy, was that a bloody mess! One of my IPs at MacDill struck a warthog (a real one, not an A-10) on landing roll at a Pakistani airfield; delivering "their" jets!
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Flock of geese to a Dash-8, took off the FO windshield wiper, 4 5" diameter dents in the nose, damage to boots on left wing and tail. Only reamains were on the FO windshiled and 1 bird on the left engine between the intake and prop spinner.

The company had to call Dehavilland to get an engineering okay to ferry the aircraft.


No offense, but the Dash-8 was the first airplane I ever flew that was purportedly certified to take a bird strike in the tail.

I hit one in the dash once . . . some kind of endangered species falcon. It actually got caught in the windshield and we watched it struggle for awhile as it flapped in the wind.

Mechanics exact quote: "Hey, it's still warm!"


:)
 
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Here's a fun little story...

XJ Crew going into ABR or ATY (don't recall) at night. Hit a flock of gease at night that messed up the windshields bad and ripped of the wipers. Had to land without blood and guts all over the windshields at night.

And that's not the fun part...

Capt's wiper blade flew back into the prop...prop propelled it into the fuselage...it went through the fuselage and STUCK IN A PASSENGER'S LEG sitting in 2A.

And that's not the fun part...

The passenger got yelled at by the FA when he stood up screaming while there on short final!!!!!:laugh:
 
And I though 9 birds on takeoff was bad!

The best part was the two stuck on the wipers, those guys looked like they were waving at each other really fast for the whole flight. But it turns out they were dead.. GO FIGURE!
 
I got hit in the face by a bumblebee on my crotch rocket at about 110mph...125 kts for you ERAU dorks
Oh and I also struck a stray cat in the head with a shovel and about a year ago I struck an RJ FO geek in the side of the head with a Heineken bottle.

Didn't go to riddle but my e6b watch says 110stat is about 96 KTS
 
I almost ran into a flock of snow geese a little north of Lambert the other day. Scared the b'jesus out of me. They were up pretty high. I'm wondering how a 172 would handle an impact with a five pound goose at 100 knots? I've seen the movie 'The Edge' and the outcome was not good....

If you have never had a bird strike, you haven't flown enough.
 
MMMMMM Birds!

#1 - bird on the bottom of a C-172RG. Barely missed the prop and heard it hit the bottom.

#2 - landing 9R in FLL we hit a four foot Crane on the rollout. The ops truck brought it to the gate to show it to us. It took the hit in the head from the nose gear. The rampers offered to show us how to cook and eat it. Go figure.

#3 - Approaching EYW at 1500 feet and the bird hit the nose then bouced off my windshield and exploded. I almost pooped it was so loud. Nice dent in the front and blood everywhere.

#4 - At 5000 feet 25nm from ZBV (in cruise) and struck the right side of the nose. Just a little dent in the side and some brains in the right intake.

#5 - Taxiing to customs in FLL. I saw the pigeon on the ground and tried to stop because it wasn't moving out of my way. I had the props in ground fine and the bird took off toward the left one. It flew right into the prop and split it in two. It hit so hard it made a "pop" sound causing some of the pax to yelp. When we deplaned I found the two separate pieces cleanly cut at the neck. Nice job Hartzell!
 
hit a flock of birds during a touch and go in an E-3, 707-320 for those who don't know, causing the 1&2 engines to roll back. This was 10kt from rotate, good amount of yaw, high speed abort. We were light weight though, only 230,000 pounds. The worst part of the whole deal was taxing off onto a taxi way and shutting down and waiting for the Fire department and MX to come out in the middle of summer in Oklahoma with a crappy APU.
 
How about 300 morning doves in a DA-20 at rotate, flamed out both engines, the crew had to ride that sucker dead stick back into the ground. LRP 9-1-05, it is poster child of the FAA bird strike poster, you may have seen it at some of the FBO's. BTW the crew walked away from the wreck, F/O said "screw this" and took a job flying in Iraq.
 
Hit a coyote taking a crap on the runway. Say in your best George Costanza voice: "We had a deal!!!"

Hit a flock of geese in the RJ on final at 145 kts. Tore that plane up!!!! Radome, aluminum strip above radome, left pitot, right leading edge in 2 places, right gear door nearly removed, and right cowl/engine sucked one in. Plane was grounded for awhile.
 

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