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  #1  
Old 06-19-2011, 01:52 AM
ao.frog ao.frog is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Manstad, Norway
Posts: 866
Default DANGER! Look what we found on top of the engine yesterday!

Yesterday, the wifey and me took the RV to a small Swedish town to have dinner. After the return flight, as usual we parked the RV outside our hangar so we could wash the bugs off.

While we where working with that, I noticed a small bird which was sitting on the propeller on a plane in a nearby hangar belonging to the local aeroclub. A few seconds later, the bird was gone.
Fair enough, but a few minutes later, I noticed another bird sitting on the same spot.

I became alittle suspicious and we went over the plane to have a closer look and here's a few pics of what we found:



Everything looks pretty normal from here, right?







And here...?







But what about now...??







Yep, there's definetely something in here which is NOT manifactured by Piper...






We took the cowling off the plane and here's what we saw:






The little birdie had picked the right spot too: right in front of the oilcooler...




I'm glad the nest was empty, otherwise we would've turned into babybird-killers.... or maybe egg-destroyers...





It was alittle sad to destroy this very nice home for the bird, because it was so very well made and it must have been ALOT of work!

But we took all the bit's & pieces out, finished the job by using a vacuum-cleaner which I keep in my hangar, put the cowling back on and then the trusty old Piper where ready for another flight.








We also put spunges in the intakes and wrote a BIG note about the spunges and hung it on the propeller.

So I guess the moral of this story is: take a REAL close look in the intakes when you do the preflight inspection....



PS: I'll check how long it was since that plane flew and post an update in a couple of days. It'll be interesting to know how long time it takes for a bird to build a nest.
As you can see, there was feathers along the edges, so my guess is that this nest has had both eggs and new birds in it.
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First RV-7 completed, (bought partly finished from a US-builder) 305 hrs per July 2014, SOLD
Second -7 had first flight Feb 25th 2014. 220 hrs pr July 2019. Life is good!

Last edited by ao.frog : 06-19-2011 at 06:01 AM.
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  #2  
Old 06-19-2011, 04:14 AM
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woodmanrog woodmanrog is offline
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Florida
Posts: 774
Default Cowl Plugs

This is why we install our cowl plugs at every fly-in and when we park the plane for the night in our hanger. A friend of mine had owls build a nest in his mooney overnight. Rats and mice can build a nest in an hour. Industrious little critters.
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  #3  
Old 06-19-2011, 04:28 AM
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plehrke plehrke is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Defiance, MO
Posts: 1,674
Default

The planes in the shade port here at our airport all have nests in the cowls as well as in the tail. The birds get in behind the fairings in the tail and build nests. Long term bird infestation is noticalbe by **** all over the H-tail but I have seen birds build a nest in 2 days. Please check all gaps, not just the cowls, as the birds will find them especially if the plane is outside at airport near open farm land. How many airports in the US does that describe?
I use cowl plugs in my hanger.
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  #4  
Old 06-19-2011, 04:37 AM
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Capflyer Capflyer is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 1,082
Default

I'm always asked why I use cowl plugs, pitot cover, and close the canopy in the hanger and this is one of the biggest reasons. It is not unusual for me to open my hanger door and find a bird flying around. Glad you caught that, I'll bet many people don't do a thorough pre-flight inspection on their hangared plane which includes looking into the cowling through the inlets and oil door.
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  #5  
Old 06-19-2011, 06:24 AM
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Mel Mel is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dallas area
Posts: 10,769
Default Back when I had my C-170B...

In the past I have cleaned out a bird nest, flown the airplane, put it in the "open" hangar and gone for lunch, came back to find the bird's almost completely rebuilt in just a couple of hours.
Once they have built, they WILL return!
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  #6  
Old 06-19-2011, 08:11 AM
Danny7 Danny7 is offline
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: central oregon
Posts: 1,089
Default

doesn't look like a set of eggs hatched out, the baby birds would have fouled the whole area with droppings. pretty clean really.
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  #7  
Old 06-19-2011, 11:14 AM
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Neal@F14 Neal@F14 is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Wichita Falls, TX
Posts: 2,182
Default

A Bonanza owner at my airport found a bird nest in the same location in front of the oil cooler this weekend. His plane is hangared too, in a very nice closed hangar that you wouldn't expect birds to be able to get inside. The oil cooler was completely covered by the bird nest. Luckily it was found before any flight.
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  #8  
Old 06-19-2011, 11:43 AM
fehdxl fehdxl is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Bellevue, NE
Posts: 686
Default

*Someone* installed the cowl plugs but left the oil cooler door open (doh!)... this was over 3 days in St Louis in early June '11. Your birds were much neater than mine...these guys/gals went for quantity not quality.

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  #9  
Old 06-19-2011, 01:18 PM
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Ironflight Ironflight is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dayton, NV
Posts: 12,256
Default Not just in the plane!

About a month ago, I was looking at the shelves in our hangar that hold completed assemblies and new parts for our project plane, and noticed that the box for the oil cooler, which I had left open, sitting on a shelf about five feet up, has a couple of bits of straw sticking out. reaching up to see how that had gotten in that, I was startled out of my socks by a bird flying out!! I almost dropped the oil cooler right then and there, but managed to to hang on - and inside the open box was a nest with three eggs. Knowing it was probably futile, but not wanting to give up a brand new Niagara 20002A to the birds, I relocated the nest to a nearby tree.

Inside the hangar, up on a shelf....no place is safe!

Paul
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  #10  
Old 06-19-2011, 02:01 PM
Kyle Boatright Kyle Boatright is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 4,219
Default

We have an active nest in the shelves in our garage. The birds fly in and out through a little gap where 4" of the foam sealing strip is missing on the garage door.

I was in Sulphur Springs Tx, a couple of years ago visiting the outlaws. I noticed some poo inside one of the cowl air intakes. Hmm, better check. Yep, a full blown nest had been installed on top of the cylinders in the day the airplane had been parked on the ramp.
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