Eagles are big up close ! Wish I had the Go Pro going.

Paul Tuttle · #1 08-06-2013, 07:41 AM

I was out for a hop yesterday. I'd just finished my downwind check and looked back outside in time to see an extra large bald eagle right in front of me and very close. He was performing some rather impressive collision avoidance maneuvers, which was a good thing because I didn't have time to. He went over the canopy I'm guessing about 20 or 30 feet over my head. I'm glad I was slowed to about 85 kts for the encounter. Made the helmet debate come to mind.

shuttle · #2 08-06-2013, 03:51 PM

Hi Paul,

Glad it was a near miss and not a hit. A friend here had a bird strike in his -8 earlier this year, which needed a new canopy.

Steve

Vlad · #3 08-06-2013, 04:16 PM

Watch for those proud birds Paul. Luckily the eagle started evasive maneuver our soarers here own the skies and never sidestep. For me at least...

ArlingtonRV · #4 08-06-2013, 04:23 PM

I had make an attack run at me a few years ago. I was climbing out of Arlington (KAWO) in my little C-150 and at about 500' over the river where they nest I encountered a very large one. He changed course to intercept and I thought for a moment he was going to hit my right wing. It would have been fatal for him, but no so great for me either.

At the very last instant he folded his wings and ducked his head and dove under my wing. He didn't miss by more than a few feet. It may have just been my imagination, but I could swear he gave me a dirty look just before he dove.

scard · #5 08-06-2013, 05:04 PM

In our neck of the woods, we have one of the largest concentrated populations of bats in the world. Try flying through a flight of those. Very scary. I was coupled with approach control and they held me at 4500' for a while which flew us right into a sea of black dots coming at us. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what it was as I announced to ATC that I was vacating 4500' in a max rate climb for collision avoidance... They made some kind of inquiry that didn't compute to which I could only reply "Standby." We topped the flock about another 500' higher. ATC said that they saw them take flight and saw them on radar at our position (normal), but "...they usually don't fly that high." OMG, WTF, SOB!
Bats must be great at collision avoidance, because not one of them hit me.

tkatc · #6 08-06-2013, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scard

In our neck of the woods, we have one of the largest concentrated populations of bats in the world. Try flying through a flight of those. Very scary. I was coupled with approach control and they held me at 4500' for a while which flew us right into a sea of black dots coming at us. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what it was as I announced to ATC that I was vacating 4500' in a max rate climb for collision avoidance... They made some kind of inquiry that didn't compute to which I could only reply "Standby." We topped the flock about another 500' higher. ATC said that they saw them take flight and saw them on radar at our position (normal), but "...they usually don't fly that high." OMG, WTF, SOB!
Bats must be great at collision avoidance, because not one of them hit me.

They have RADAR!!

BTW, how did the PnP presentation go?

scard · #7 08-06-2013, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkatc

BTW, how did the PnP presentation go?

As an outsider looking in,, Bust.

humptybump · #8 08-06-2013, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Tuttle

I was out for a hop yesterday and looked back outside in time to see an extra large bald eagle right in front of me and very close.

Paul - that is good practice for your visit to 53VG. We have turkey buzzards at 1000-2000' and raptor birds at 1500-3000'

DrillBit · #9 08-07-2013, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkatc

They have RADAR!!

Um...that would be SONAR, Robin, old chum! Where's Commissioner Gordon!?

newt · #10 08-07-2013, 02:20 AM

We get wedgetail eagles here. Wingspans up to 10', weighing about 20 - 25 lbs. In summer they can often be found at heights above 10,000'. They usually hang around soaring at the top of convection looking for food on the ground, and when they find it they tuck their wings in and descend like a bullet, flaring and reaching out with their talons at the last second to grip their prey and loft it skyward.

They can spot a fieldmouse from about 8000'.

We see a lot of them in gliders. For most times of the year they're pretty benign, and will happily share thermals with us, occasionally coming in close to play in the wingtip vortices. I've had one of them formate on me close enough that I could see the feathers around his eyes rustling in the slipstream. One of those amazing experiences that you can only explain to other aviators.

We give them a wide berth during mating season, because they can get pretty aggressive and territorial. When they want to attack they'll position themselves above and behind you in the sun, then dive-bomb towards you. They'll typically aim for the canopy or the ailerons, probably because they usually disable other birds by going for the eyes or the wingtip feathers.

They almost always miss to the aft (no sense of scale, no idea of how big we are, upsets their aim and timing?)

We can use them as thermal markers when flying cross country on blue-sky days. If you see two or three of them circling in the distance, it means there's a thermal there, and they aren't feeling territorial (if you see one of them circling alone, there's lift but maybe he's too aggressive to have companions)

I've seen a couple of cases of people hitting them by accident. They make a bit of a mess of the leading edge, not the kind of thing you'd want to make a habit of. I think it's very, very rare.

- mark