Bird FL's?

[MGlobemaster]

So there I was, enjoying a nice peaceful night X/C in my 172 from KDSM to KCBF last night. I was tooting around at about 3,500 AGL enjoying the smooth ride when I looked off to my left side and saw what appeared to be two shooting stars just above the horizon. I was just thinking to myself, "That was odd, you don't normally see them that low." when all of a sudden there were two more that crossed in front of me from left to right. The only difference was that this time, one of those shooting stars slammed directly into the center of my right wing. No one had ever explained to me that your landing light glinting off the menacing wing of a fine feathered friend looks strangely similar to a small shooting star. As more of these "shooting stars" gleamed past my windshield I requested from ATC, "...any altitude other than this one."

To make a long story short, I landed uneventfully. The bird made about a softball size dent in the leading edge, but the plane flew like it didn't even know what happened. However, this left me with a question in my mind, "Do 'migratory birds' generally fly at certain altitudes?" Lemme know what you all think.

 

[2000flyer]

Don't know if they have "assigned" altitudes or not but I've seen ducks as high as 10,000', passed several trumpeter swans a night around 4000'. Passed a mylar ballon at FL190 the other day but that probably doesn't count.

Also, I routinely see turkey buzzards between 1500-5000' riding the thermals.

2000Flyer

 

[avbug]

I've had two bird strikes at night, and both were approximately 10,000'. One took the windscreen of a Cessna 182, and the other shattered the radome of a Lear 35A.

Your instructor probably never told you this, but if you turn on your landing light at night and see something you don't like, turn it off.

Whatever you hit couldn't have been very big...the last time I hit a bird in a small Cessna it peeled the leading edge back to the spar.

I used to hit hundreds of birds while spraying...the flocks would rise out of the crop as I was coming up on them. I imagine the crop masked my sound until I was almost on top of them. when they rose out of the crop, the sound was like popcorn striking the airplane; I called them popcorn birds. Sometimes they'd wind up in the cockpit, sometimes wrapped around spray nozzles or the spray boom, and sometimes I'd find them inside the automatic flagman ram air intake. Sometimes they'd make it past the prop and strike the blade cutter on the front of the canopy (a large blade used for guiding or cutting powerlines and phone lines...in theory). They'd either ride the blade cutter to the top of the canopy where they'd enter the fresh air vent for the cockpit, explode, and get sprayed down the back of my shirt, or they'd get cut in half on the blade. One half of the bird would go whizzing by my head on the right, one on the left.

What you need is BCAS, the bird collision avoidance system. BCAS only works with transponder equipped birds, but in this day and age, that's pretty much all of them; everybody knows that if targets aren't talking or squawking, they don't exist. For this same reason, virtually all birds except sparrows and starlings are presently equipped with .025 khz spaced aircraft radios. A study is underway as we speak to look into requiring anti collision lighting on all birds except recreational birds and sport birds, which can pretty much do as they please.

 

[Fuzzy_is_Hungry]

Man, its getting deep in here.

 

[Lead Sled]

I remember reading somewhere that the highest known birdstrike occurred at FL230. I've thermaled with a hawk at just under 16,000. It wasn't hunting up there, it was just doing the same thing I was doing - having a ball.

'Sled

 

[MGlobemaster]

Maybe they just need a dispatch office. You'd think the FAA would start cracking down on them...they NEVER file flight plans. Jerks.

 

[avbug]

Oh, they always file them, they just have no way to open them. They can hunt and peck on a keyboard for DUATS but when it comes to actually opening the flight plan...

I wasn't kidding about the ag airplanes, the cessnas and the lear. That part was true.

 

[Clutch_Cargo]

I'd think it would really depend on the species of bird but I'd say it's safe to assume most of them are cruising along at the same altitudes you are... below 10,000. Bar-headed geese supposedly go above 30,000... must look like a lung with wings!

cc

 

[rcsimpson]

Anybody hear about the guys that hit a snake in the flight levels? Apparently a tropical storm sent a snake flying up into the jetstream and it smacked a heavy up there.

 

[avbug]

William Shatner saw a large hairy man on the wing tearing apart the #2 engine in flight years ago, too. I believe that was also in a storm. The whole episode seemed to shake him up quite badly, as I recall.

 

[Big Duke Six]

I've hit some nasty-a$$ bugs at 17,000'. Anyone have any idea what they could have been? They left BIG, yellow gooey splotches. That should narrow it down huh? Seriously though, it happened a number of times, up in WY, was always in the morning with no real convection going on yet.

 

[Clutch_Cargo]

William Shatner saw a large hairy man on the wing tearing apart the #2 engine in flight years ago, too. I believe that was also in a storm. The whole episode seemed to shake him up quite badly, as I recall.

Seeing William Shatner shakes me up quite badly!

 

[avbug]

I've hit some nasty-a$$ bugs at 17,000'. Anyone have any idea what they could have been? They left BIG, yellow gooey splotches.

Well,if it occured between the months of May and July, then it was probably a JUNE BUG!!!

 

[Big Duke Six]

What about Mayflies? Could they have been Mayflies?

 

[Lead Sled]

I've hit some nasty-a$$ bugs at 17,000'. Anyone have any idea what they could have been? They left BIG, yellow gooey splotches. That should narrow it down huh? Seriously though, it happened a number of times, up in WY, was always in the morning with no real convection going on yet.

My guess would be a herd of Monarch butterflies that got caught in a thermal during their migration. I got pasted by them real bad one time in a Lear, it was pretty hard to see out of the windscreen - big yellow gooey splotches.

'Sled

 

[Kream926]

i hit a bat once, 7000 hard IMC during my inst. training. we didnt know untill the fuel guy told us we had a dead bat wrapped around the fairing.
poor flappy prob thought we were the momma bat

 

[WizardPilot]

I've seen my share of birds at 10500 in the Utah mountain areas. You just try to keep an eye out for them in the summers. I took off from a runway and there must have been some seaguls in the field to the left and end of the runway. I was about 100 feet off the ground and these things just were everywhere, I got lucky and didn't get hit. Lots of seagulls flyin around is kinda freaky, never seen birds maneuver like that before...