Thought I would share a wildlife strike which happened a few months ago..
I went up to the hangar with my dad Nyle to grab a couple of tools and check on the hangar. We decided to do a little trip in the ten so we blasted out toward Thunder Ridge which is an asphalt strip SE of 36U. It is over 7000 feet in elevation and really pretty. My friend Scott owns some land on the field. On the way there we noticed a lot of wildlife running around the mountain peaks. When the field came into view I did a low pass looking for wildlife, specifically noticing some birds orbiting above the field. I set up for landing in an idle flare. Three seconds after the landing my peripheral vision picked up something bad....a herd of mule deer running across the runway. I mashed on the brakes until they locked up and WHAM! right into the fourth deer. It was slo-mo and all my dad and I could do is watch a deer leg flying in the air about 30 feet high, slowly rotating. It was surreal. The engine slowly quit. I found my RPM was about 1100 when I sliced the deer and looking at the garmin SD card it shows a slow idle down until the engine couldn’t regain rpm. I stayed centerline and thought I trashed the plane. Not sure how I missed the other deer but all I hit was one. My dad and I got out of the plane and looked around at the carnage. I looked at the plane and at first glance it looked pretty unscathed. We measured the prop tip from the nose wheel pant and decided the prop was okay as far as we could tell. I walked to the deer which was still steaming out of it’s abdomen. I don’t mind eating animals and others hunting but personally I hate killing anything. I felt really bad about killing it. The prop passed through the back of the deer all the way to the stomach and then lopped off both back legs. Somehow I didn’t run it over and it was twisted 180 degrees in the middle section. I dragged the body off the runway into the weeds.
After we looked over the plane I came up with three places for closer inspection: the nose wheel pant was hit hard and paint flaked off the front, the cowling was hit hard enough to gouge the fiberglass and looked over the prop. I decided to start the airplane. The airplane started normally. I ran the prop up to full power and cycled it a few times. I did an extended run-up but found no problems. We cleared the runway and decided to go for it. The plane flew fine and vibration seemed normal. I circled over the runway until I was 14500 feet then hopped over to Heber. We landed and taxied to the hangar. It took a while to clean the aircraft. The smell was awful. I reported the strike to the FAA wildlife strike form online.
The next day I took the propeller off and sent it out for inspection. A few days later precision propeller stated I should replace the hub. Hartzell also wants you to replace the hub after any type of strike. The blades were fine. I guess at idle the blades don't have enough centrifugal force to keep them from damaging the hub. So high rpm's damage blades and low rpm's damage hubs. After I received the news I needed a new hub, I pulled the engine off and sent it out for prop strike inspection SB533B. The engine inspection came back clean without any damage. I was still glad I had sent it in for piece of mind. It's hard to put a price on that!
I have pics which are a little gory but interesting.
You can see my dog was freaked out a little when I returned.
It was amazing to me nothing was damaged on the airplane, except paint.
Antennas, control surfaces etc.were unscathed..
I went up to the hangar with my dad Nyle to grab a couple of tools and check on the hangar. We decided to do a little trip in the ten so we blasted out toward Thunder Ridge which is an asphalt strip SE of 36U. It is over 7000 feet in elevation and really pretty. My friend Scott owns some land on the field. On the way there we noticed a lot of wildlife running around the mountain peaks. When the field came into view I did a low pass looking for wildlife, specifically noticing some birds orbiting above the field. I set up for landing in an idle flare. Three seconds after the landing my peripheral vision picked up something bad....a herd of mule deer running across the runway. I mashed on the brakes until they locked up and WHAM! right into the fourth deer. It was slo-mo and all my dad and I could do is watch a deer leg flying in the air about 30 feet high, slowly rotating. It was surreal. The engine slowly quit. I found my RPM was about 1100 when I sliced the deer and looking at the garmin SD card it shows a slow idle down until the engine couldn’t regain rpm. I stayed centerline and thought I trashed the plane. Not sure how I missed the other deer but all I hit was one. My dad and I got out of the plane and looked around at the carnage. I looked at the plane and at first glance it looked pretty unscathed. We measured the prop tip from the nose wheel pant and decided the prop was okay as far as we could tell. I walked to the deer which was still steaming out of it’s abdomen. I don’t mind eating animals and others hunting but personally I hate killing anything. I felt really bad about killing it. The prop passed through the back of the deer all the way to the stomach and then lopped off both back legs. Somehow I didn’t run it over and it was twisted 180 degrees in the middle section. I dragged the body off the runway into the weeds.
After we looked over the plane I came up with three places for closer inspection: the nose wheel pant was hit hard and paint flaked off the front, the cowling was hit hard enough to gouge the fiberglass and looked over the prop. I decided to start the airplane. The airplane started normally. I ran the prop up to full power and cycled it a few times. I did an extended run-up but found no problems. We cleared the runway and decided to go for it. The plane flew fine and vibration seemed normal. I circled over the runway until I was 14500 feet then hopped over to Heber. We landed and taxied to the hangar. It took a while to clean the aircraft. The smell was awful. I reported the strike to the FAA wildlife strike form online.
The next day I took the propeller off and sent it out for inspection. A few days later precision propeller stated I should replace the hub. Hartzell also wants you to replace the hub after any type of strike. The blades were fine. I guess at idle the blades don't have enough centrifugal force to keep them from damaging the hub. So high rpm's damage blades and low rpm's damage hubs. After I received the news I needed a new hub, I pulled the engine off and sent it out for prop strike inspection SB533B. The engine inspection came back clean without any damage. I was still glad I had sent it in for piece of mind. It's hard to put a price on that!
I have pics which are a little gory but interesting.
You can see my dog was freaked out a little when I returned.
It was amazing to me nothing was damaged on the airplane, except paint.
Antennas, control surfaces etc.were unscathed..
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