Good Amount of Birds/Deer/Coyote Alert!

[minitour]

Anyone get annoyed when the guy up ahead says "tower for a heads up to the guys behind me, there was a (insert from title) by the (insert location by the runway)?

If so, I'll stop.

Usually if I notice a large group of birds hanging out by an end of the runway, I'll give a hollar back so the guys coming in/going out behind me are lookin out. Other day I gave out a "coyote" holla and no one seemed too thrilled...

If this is a no no, I be sorry

-mini

 

[Lead Sled]

Mini...
Any time you can do or say something that could save someone the grief of a bird or animal strike you need to do it. The last thing I want to do is to fly through a flock of birds or worse. You're not going to give me any heartburn if you let the tower know what's going on. If you're flying out of an uncontrolled field, then I'd let it be known on the unicom frequency.

I had an experience about three years ago. We were departing Meacham Field in Fort Worth, Texas. It was an evening departure and we were deadheading to Houston to pick up some company people then on to Fort Lauderdale. Just prior to V1 something darted out in front of us. We felt a solid thump and aborted the takeoff and taxied back to the ramp. The tower controller had someone take a truck out on the runway to see if they could find out what we had struck. They found a 200 pound ferral pig lying dead right on the runway center line. We were extremely lucky, an animal that size, if we had hit it dead on, would have easily taken out our nose or main gear. As it was, he was hit by our nosewheel chine and we suffered no other damage. I spoke with the tower controller on the phone and he mentioned that they knew that there were pigs on the airport boundaries, but that they usually didn't get anywhere close to the runway. It could have been real ugly. (The contoller had to fill out a special form for the FAA. I had to wait a while while he tried to find it; but he couldn't find one so he simply took a "Bird Strike Report" and crossed out the word "Bird" and wrote "Pig". I guess that I'm probably the only person to have ever filed an FAA Pig Strike Report.)

I flew out of the Grand Canyon Airport for a few years back in the mid-70's. They had a real problem with dear on the runway near sunrise and sunset. Again, it was good to get those reports from the other pilots and the tower controllers.

'Sled

 

[User546]

That's a great story Sled.

I ran over a rabbit in my car driving into the airport this morning. I didn't report it tower, but I guess now I shoud've.

I agree with Sled though, very important to mention all that.

We were coming out of Topeka, KS one early evening and right as we ran up on V1 a flock of birds (hundreds, and hundreds of birds) all of a sudden flew into the air from the side of the runway where they had been all grouped on the ground. There were so many you could barely see through them as they moved across the runway in front of us. That was a tense few moments wondering whether or not we were going to suck a bird or two into one or both of the engines!

Having had a heads up from another airplane prior to that would've really helped us out!

In other news, we almost hit a cow on the approach end of a runway out in an pasture airfield in Texas one afternoon. I'll never forget the size of that cows eyes as he turned to look at us as we're on short, short final. At the last second he darted at a speed I didn't think cows could move! Our passengers behind us had been watching or were all rolling with laughter.

 

[TEXAN AVIATOR]

Always report anything like that to other pilots, unicom, or the tower. You could very well prevent an accident.

TA

 

[hawg2hawk]

Remember Mini,

Incidents like Sled's could have been prevented with a timely pigrep.

I wouldn't bet on being the only guy to have ever filed a pig strike report. When I was stationed in Georgia, our safety officer kept busy filling out all kinds of reports for all kinds of animals jammed into all kinds of places on all kinds of aircraft, both inflight and on the ground. Turkey vultures, deer, snakes, you name it. (A snake can end up in some odd places when you hit one at 120 knots, by the way). My personal favorite: one of our F-16s did the Ginsu routine to a 6-foot alligator that wasn't cleared to cross the active. Ruined the gator's day, as well as the guys who had to peel the gator chunks off the brakes.

 

[Vector4fun]

I had a BE-99 stand on the brakes once to miss an ibex. Got loose from a ranch somewhere nearby. Wonder what the duty officer at the Region would have done with an ibex-strike report?

Good thing it wasn't an aoudad. Those things are tough like little Sherman Tanks....

 

[JAFI]

Mini, I agree with the other posters, It is better to have something reported than to be the first to find out.

I had to buzz a runway to get the moose off the runway before I could land. Before this, I had cut a deer in half (at night) who ran across the runway just as I touched down. The deer was bad enough, a moose would be bad, very bad....

Sled, I'm going to look for that "Pig" strike form, The bird strike (airborne) is an ATC/FAA form. The Pig strike (ground) may be an FAA/Airports form. I would not doubt that I find something......

JAFI

 

[HMR]

Am I the only one who always gets fooled by those fake dogs (bird deterents?) in the bushes at KTEB?

 

[Lead Sled]

Sled, I'm going to look for that "Pig" strike form, The bird strike (airborne) is an ATC/FAA form. The Pig strike (ground) may be an FAA/Airports form. I would not doubt that I find something...

I was going to make it easy for you and give you the date, but we're getting ready to move into a new place and the old logs are packed away. There was a write up in Pro Pilot Magazine about the incident. I talked to the line guys a couple of days later, they said the BBQ was pretty good.

You mentioned hitting a deer. I was the east coast chief pilot for the company I was working for. We were based at an airport northeast of Columbus Ohio. At night the Star Check guys out of CMH would do their flight training and shoot approaches into our airport. Late one evening, they hit a couple of deer with one of their Barons. They guys got out, looked at their airplane - evidently it was OK - and saw a couple of dead deer on the runway. You could see where they drug the carcusses of to the side of the runway. All was fine up to that point. The only problem was that the deer were eviserated and they left the gut piles on the runway. Early the next morning a couple of our pilots blasted off before the sun came up. You guessed it, they went through the gut piles at warp 3. They didn't know it at the time and they didn't find out until they landed - you can't imagine the mess and spray that results when a Lear's nose wheel tire and main gear blast through a pile of internal organs at V1 plus. Everything was liquified and blasted into every conceivable, crack, crevice, oriface, hole, etc. etc. etc. The airport authority had to get a power washer to get the mess off of the runway. We hired a cleaning crew to clean up the Lear.

A couple of years before that incident I was flying the Lear out of a small airport not far from Indianapolis and deadheading to Baltimore, our first of 3 stops, on our way out to the left coast. Right at rotation, a flock of geese came up and flew across our flight path. A quick check showed that we had some damage - the LH recog light had been shattered and the frame was laid back across the tip tank. I quickly discussed things with my copilot and we decided to divert to Indianapolis - Lear has a service center there. I didn't really want to return to land because it was obvious that where ever we stopped was were we were going to stay until we located mechanics and parts to get us back up and running. I got on the flight phone and talked to the Bombardier Service manager and told him what had happened. He told me that they would waiting for us when we got there. Sure enough, 15 minutes later we were on the ramp and they had the hangar doors opened and had us taxi "right on in". In less than an hour we were inspected, repaired, signed off, refueled and taxiing to the active! We continued on to Baltimore and resumed the trip. At the end of the day, we were only 20 minutes behind schedule! Those guys do know their stuff. By the way, the airport manager counted 4 Canadian Geese lying dead on the runway.

'Sled

 

[Lead Sled]

Am I the only one who always gets fooled by those fake dogs (bird deterents?) in the bushes at KTEB?

They're fakes?

'Sled

 

[HMR]

They're fakes?

'Sled

Yea, they're a lot easier to catch than the ones at home but they taste awful.

 

[JAFI]

Lead, I don't need the date of your incident. I was just going to pass on your story and look for the "pig" kill form, as a joke to my co-workers.

Sometimes the size of the animal isn't all that important. I was going into a small very out of the way place, at night, where the runway looks like an aircraft carrier in the middle of a dark ocean. The landing light system was not working but we had a taxi light so we launched. On final we heard a bang, like a shot, and no taxi light. We landed, got out of the aircraft, looked at what was the taxi light and found a small claw of what looked like a very small bird. So we now had no lights. I think the bird didn't care for the event either...

JAFI

 

[Lead Sled]

Sometimes the size of the animal isn't all that important...I think the bird didn't care for the event either...

In aviation everything is relative...
We've all been in situations where we've had ATC advise us "Caution wake turbulence, departing heavy jet..." Back when I was flying a Lear, we decided that it might be a good idea to make an "in-house" safety training video that we could show our frequent passengers. One of the "airport bums" at the airport where we were based was a photographer who specialized in wedding videos. He volunteered to do the work and we took him up on his offer. He wanted to get a shot of us taking off - something that would be real impressive. He set up his camera along the runway and started the tape as we started the takeoff roll. The takeoff was typical "light weight Lear". When we played back the video we noticed a large black crow was crossing the runway, about treetop level right after we departed. That bird flew into our wake turbulence and was turned every which way but loose, then he plumeted straight to the ground. I don't think he ever knew what hit him. Like I said, everything is relative...

'Sled

 

[Lead Sled]

Yea, they're a lot easier to catch than the ones at home but they taste awful.

You eat fake dogs? Funny, you don't look Korean.

'Sled

 

[JAFI]

I don't think he ever knew what hit him. Like I said, everything is relative...

'Sled

I guess you never thought you would be refered to by any animal as "that Lear Heavy..."

JAFI

 

[HMR]

You eat fake dogs? Funny, you don't look Korean.

'Sled

Look at my picture again. You can see it in my chin.