There was a good article in this month's AOPA magazine on avoiding bird strikes, including a study on what birds are inclined to do (dive, climb, nothing) at particular altitudes.
 
Well, that certainly is gripping video. But it's hard to tell, but I'd guess he didn't have more than 500 feet of altitude, and he tried to turn back to the airport....almost always a losing proposition.

Wonder what was straight ahead?
 
I saw this posted on another forum last week. Both the instructor and pilot ejected safely. I believe the turn was more to get the aircraft pointed away from the surrounding houses than trying to get back to the runway :confused: .

You can hear them on the recorder trying a re-light several times.
 
When I was reading that AOPA article this morning, I got to thinking and realizing that I don't spend ANYWHERE near enough time on takeoff planning for a problem.

I mean, sure, I had the same training everyone else had but I realized that you really have to be cycling through "what ifs" every second and waiting for it to happen or you're going to be dead, precisely because there's so little time and so few options.

I could just kick myself for getting complacent.
 
bird strike

I know that those Canadian geese can get pretty big, but I didn't realize that one would cause a jet engine failure. I've seen tests of civilian aircraft engines where they throw frozen turkeys into the engines to ensure that they don't fail. Perhaps the military aircraft don't have the same requirements.

I recall an event when I was a kid where a neighbor of ours, a young Captain McCaffery, flying an RF-4(C?), had a bird strike right into the windscreen while smokin' along over the central Texas countryside. His navigator assumed it was a midair after losing comms and seeing lots of blood. Since you can't fly one of these from the back seat, he punched. Our Capt. McCaffery stayed with the aircraft, even tho he could barely see, having had his windscreen knocked out and being covered with bird guts.

It's a good thing he did stay with his aircraft, since the bird strike had rendered his ejection system inoperative, it was later found. I recall seeing a photo of the jet while he was flying under these conditions, and it was trailing his ejection seat's parachute. Shortly after this incident, Capt. McCaffery became Maj. McCaffery.
 
Takeoff briefing

Bob Collins said:
I could just kick myself for getting complacent.
Click to expand...
It is easy to do, that's for sure. I'm not sure what you can add to your takeoff briefing for this kind of event that is not already there - engine failure. It would not hurt to remind yourself that birds flying below 500 feet might climb instead of dive.
 
I had a bird strike in my -6A earlier this summer. It happened soon after take-off at approximately 300' AGL. It happened so fast that the image of the bird barely registered in my brain before impact.

I made an immedite precautionary landing to assess the damage, even though the plane was performing normally.

I was lucky. It was a fairly large bird. It hit the propeller and got sliced up before impacting the lower leading edge of the cowl cooling inlet. But it made a mess. I cleaned bird remains off of the wing, tail, rudder, engine and gear. Nothing on the canopy. Nothing in the intake scoop.

I guess the comforting thing was that the bird got chewed up so bad by the prop that it could not have plugged up the air intake even if it had hit in that area.

Ben Beaird
-6A, 85 hrs
Plymouth, WI
 
It's a good reminder of how fast things can happen sometimes.

I find some minor humor, though, in the accompanying article that states that:
"What's being looked at is a bird strike -- the ingestion by the engine of a bird," Col. Alain Boyer said. "That's what the No. 1 theory is right now. That would explain the loss of thrust from the engine."

Someone should show these people the video and perhaps the "theory" of a bird strike might become just a little more solid after they see that big bird and then note the immediate warning after the bird disappears.
 
Bird Strikes

Many years ago while commander of our Sheriff's Office aviation unit in AZ I made it a mandate that the flight crews where helmet with visors down while in flight. There was some bitching and moaning because of the summer heat.

Not too long after this we had a large bird, (big buzzard) go through the front canopy. The observer had bone embedded in this helmet. The aircraft was brought down safely.

I know it is impractical to wear helmets in RV's and probably impossible to avoid a bird strike, however the key is obviously to fly the plane. A training regime would be to simulate a bird strike and practice getting the airplane slowed down and fly this way to a safe landing. Additionally, with a safety pilot on board, practice flying with one eye closed to simulate an injury or crap in the eye. Even doing this a couple of times a year would better prepare one for the possibility.

Darwin N. Barrie
Chandler AZ
 
Bird Ingestion

rv8ch said:
I know that those Canadian geese can get pretty big, but I didn't realize that one would cause a jet engine failure. I've seen tests of civilian aircraft engines where they throw frozen turkeys into the engines to ensure that they don't fail. Perhaps the military aircraft don't have the same requirements.
Click to expand...
There is most definitely a requirement for bird ingestion capabilities for military aircraft. Although, unlike civilian engines, a service can modify the requirements to fit the need for each engine model. Flight test demonstrators may have no requirement, but a production model is generally similar to FAA regs.

They all, including civil aircraft, generally follow the same standard of being able to survive a "small" bird with no flameout and a minimal performance loss, and being able to contain a "large" bird meaning that it will not throw blades through the engine case and damage the aircraft. The definition of large and small are dependent on the inlet size. The hawk has a pretty small inlet, so a goose would most certainly fall into the large catagory.

The FAA reg is here: http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulator...486256E14006CAFE5?OpenDocument&Highlight=bird

Impressive video, and good point, Lee, 46 seconds from nomal flight to ejection! Yikes.
 
Bob Collins said:
I also noticed the admonition to "fly the plane."
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I think he says "I'll fly the plane". I thought the pilots did an amazing job. Climb to gain some altitude/time, and thier speed management was right on. I bet the best glide rate for the Hawk is somewhere around 125-130 knots. Watch the speed in the top left hand corner of the HUD. Great job all around. They also did one of the smartest things I can think of and stayed calm and in control, especially what sounds like the instructor.
 
Single engine is not the only ones having bird strikes

http://www.micom.net/oops/Bird-v-Plane.jpg
http://www.micom.net/oops/ByByBirdie.jpg
http://www.micom.net/oops/C-141bird1.jpg
http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer04articles/summer04gifs/p37p2.jpg
http://www.tech.purdue.edu/at/Courses/AEML/airframeimages/brokenarcherwing.jpg

DID YOU KNOW THAT?

? Over 195 people have been killed worldwide as a result of bird strikes since 1988.

? Wildlife strikes cost U.S. civil aviation over $500 million/year, 1990-2003.

? Over 4,300 bird strikes were reported by the U.S. Air Force in 2003.

? Over 5,900 bird strikes were reported for U.S. civil aircraft in 2003.

? An estimated 80% of bird strikes to U.S. civil aircraft go unreported.

? Waterfowl (32%), gulls (28%), and raptors (17%) represented 77% of the reported bird strikes causing damage to U.S. civil aircraft, 1990-2003.

? Over 600 civil aircraft collisions with deer were reported in the U.S., 1990-2003.

? A 12-lb Canada goose struck by an 150-mph aircraft at lift-off generates the force of a 1,000-lb weight dropped from a height of 10 feet.

? In 1890, 60 European starlings were released in Central Park, New York City. Starlings are now the second most abundant bird in North America with a late-summer population of over 150 million birds. Starlings are "feathered bullets", having a body density 27% higher than herring gulls.

? The North American non-migratory Canada goose population increased 3.6 fold from 1 million birds in 1990 to 3.6 million in 2003.

The North American population of greater snow geese increased from about 50,000 birds in 1966 to 700,000 birds in 2003.

? The Great Lakes cormorant population increased from only about 200 nesting adults in 1970 to over 230,000 nesting adults in 2003, a 1,000-fold increase.

? The North American white and brown pelican populations grew at average annual rates of 3.9% and 3.3%, respectively, 1980-2003.

? At least 15,000 gulls were counted nesting on roofs in U.S. cities on the Great Lakes during a survey in 1994.

? About 90% of all bird strikes in the U.S. are by species federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/faculties/ss/gem/cesa/birdstrike.htm

Bird strikes I had first hand knowledge of:

Piper hit windscreen, damaged pilots vision permanently. Plane was rented from club I flew at as a CFI

B737 for airline I flew at hit bird at 10,000' & 250kts. The windscreen stayed intact, but covered the Captain with glass. F/O did landing.

Bird hit the side of cockpit below my side window with thud. Inspection after showed just a bloody stain. On another flight a bird was sucked in the engine on takeoff. Neither caused damage but you could smell the bird that went into the engine (both in a B737). The bird was cooked in the engine and the bleed-air a/c-pressurization system picked up the smell.

Wear eye protection at least. Watch out for the high-speed pass. George

Here is a BRAND new Video of a Jet bird strike from cockpit video; the ending is sobering; you have been warned.
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm
(Half way down select New August 2005! Hawk Strike! A fighter jet ingests a hawk shortly after take-off, with disastrous results. This video takes you from the first strike all the way to ejection -- from INSIDE the cockpit. OTHER cool videos at this site)
 
Last edited:
While flying with Jay Pratt a few months ago in his RV-6 (Borrowed Horse), a group of us went up to a little place on Lake Texoma for lunch, called Cedar Mills Marina. MANY-MANY birds were present on final, since the end of the runway essentially touches the water. Gull-type birds all around the lake/end of runway. After we landed and were about to head up to the restaurant, we noticed another RV on final. We waited for him and he proceeded to explain about taking a bird hit a few months prior in his RV, on final to this exact runway. I forget the full extent of his damage, but I do recall him saying he had quite a lot of repair work to do, and ordered numerous new parts from Van's. He stated he was very lucky on the impact point, by being able to still land the plane despite all the damage. If I am not mistaken, the horizontal stabilizer took one heck of a hit.

It's amazing the damage a small bird can do....not to mention a large one. :eek:
 
Last edited:
And sometimes you get very lucky -

Wife and I were flying into Denton last September. While on the base leg, a flock of buzzards appeared in our path. While I was able to climb a bit and dodge most of them, one struck right on the front corner of the cowling. The body slid up the cowl, up the windshield and across the top of the plane. However, most of the innards ended up INSIDE the cowling making for a very disgusting clean-up job. Scared the crap out of me (not to mention the bird) but thankfully nothing was damaged.

I fully expected the cowling to be destroyed, but it wasn't even scratched.

317d.jpg
 
Agl altitude on ejection

I watched that thing about 15 times, first, amazed at their composure; but later, trying to figure their height agl. When the video begins their hud is showing just under 2k on rollout. Looks like they got it up another grand plus, and they punched out at about 700 agl I think.

I would hire that instructor pilot to fly my daughter around, that's how much trust I feel through hearing that audio. Quite an instant and harrowing experience. They did great.

Wade
 
One more bird story

A friend of mine (Commercial and CFI) was on downwind in a twin after dark when suddenly the windshield exploded. He said there was blood all over his face and he thought it was his. He was having a hard time seeing anything because of all the blood and wind coming in. Somehow he managed to land the plane in spite of all that was going on in the cabin. After he was safe on the ground he found a flashlight an realized the blood was from the duck that came through the windshield on the passenger side. Luckily the pilot was the only person aboard. He found what was left of the duck in the back seat. I would fly with that guy anywhere!!! I am glad I wasn't with him on that particular flight though.

Jim Wright 90919
 
more birds...

My bird encounter story goes a little something like this;

So there I was, late at night, 7000 ft in a C-310R enroute OMA to DSM with a load of cancelled checks. It's a clear but dark night, nice and smooth, all is well, listening to my FM Walkman... when I heard and felt a loud "thump!". Got my attention right now. A quick check with a flashlight revealed no damage that I could see, but even so, I made a very slow and gentle descent and landing into Des Moines.

Once on the ramp the damage was pretty obvious; it was a close encounter with 4-5 geese! Both sides of the horizontal stab were smashed in, leading edges pushed back to the spar; one hit the right spinner, mangling it and ended up cooking on top of the engine. Eww, the smell... another hit the right wing leading edge just outboard of the engine nacelle, also smashing it back to the spar. That airplane was down for several weeks to get hammered back into shape; and those stupid birds, droning around at night with no lights on... just asking to get whacked! It was kinda scary though, hard to see and avoid at night.
 
You ever fly out of St. Paul? Back when I was learning to fly at St. Paul downtown, there was a Lear (I think) that left every night around 6 with a load of canceled checks. Man, it was great watching him leave.... firewalled it, up and...gone.

I have expected to see him do a few loops on the way out.
 
St. Paul? You betcha, 5 nights a week! My usual run was Omaha-Des Moines-St. Paul and return... but since we had 4 planes and 5 pilots based at OMA sometimes we'd trade runs for a little variety; we also covered Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Kansas City, Lincoln, Chicago Midway, Rochester. I landed STP around 0300 and left at 0530. I don't really miss the late night stuff. Those Lears were pretty impressive, especially the old 20 series rocket ships; I got some "bootleg" time in the right seat in 'em, what a blast. And speaking of whacking critters, on the runway at STP my tally is 2 rabbits and a fox, while one of our Lears hit a deer. The deer lost.

So you learned to fly at STP? Didja ever fly a C-172 N4675G? It was a trainer at STP; did my pvt checkride in that one when it was Texas based in '86. I think it's still up there...
 
I would like to add my 2 cents worth on bird/wildlife strikes from a military viewpoint.

Since 1985 there have been over 38,000 bird-aircraft strikes recorded by the United States Air Force (USAF) that killed 33 aviators, destroyed 30 aircraft, and caused more than $500 million dollars worth of equipment damage. Although we don?t always get a chance to choose when we fly operationally, the USAF goes through great lengths to Operational Risk Manage (ORM) training sorties. One aspect of this ORM effort involves wildlife strikes. We deliberately plan when we fly transition training to avoid peak bird activity in the pattern. For example, bird activity is usually greatest 1 hour prior to one hour after sunrise/sunset. Additionally, we look at migratory bird activity and airfield environments for specific wildlife impacts. One tool the USAF and FAA have developed is the Bird Avoidance Model (BAM) that is available to all aviators. It uses 8 years of data to model and chart bird activity for the United States. Check it out at http://www.usahas.com/bam/

Finally, we brief emergency procedures prior to every flight and ensure they are tailored to the departure/arrival field. This gets everyone into the right mindset prior to takeoff!

Knowledge is power.
 
Same video...more info...

Copied from here-- "An AVweb reader recently passed along in-cockpit video of a Canada Air Force CT-155 Hawk before, as, and after its in-flight ingestion of a bird. The aircraft's heads up display is visible, the bird is visible, as is the last image caught on camera -- a farmer's field. Synopsis of the May 14, 2004 accident is available, here. The accident aircraft carried a crew of two. One student and one instructor pilot. One pilot survived the experience with minor injuries, the other was seriously injured. The video is available, here."

**break break **

Copied from here.

Type: Hawk CT155202

Date: 14 May 2004

Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

The mission was a navigation trip and part of a conversion syllabus designed to familiarize the Royal Air Force (RAF) student with the NFTC Hawk variant. With the area portion completed, the crew was conducting some proficiency flying at 15 Wing. The IP had just taken control and as the aircraft approached the departure end of Runway 29R, a bird was observed just left of the nose. Both crewmembers heard a "thump", felt vibrations and noted a change in engine pitch. This was followed immediately by audio and caption engine warnings (T6NL&ECA) and high engine temperature indication (660 C).

The IP traded airspeed for altitude, confirmed that engine temperatures remained high, reduced throttle to idle and told the student to "prepare to abandon the aircraft". The aircraft reached a maximum altitude of approximately 3700 MSL (1700 AGL). When the aircraft descended through 3000 MSL the IP transmitted his intention to eject to Moose Jaw tower. After confirming the student was ready, the IP ordered and initiated ejection.

Both occupants cleared the aircraft and descended under parachutes but for less than 30 seconds prior to landing. One crewmember was seriously injured in the sequence and the other received minor injuries. The aircraft was completely destroyed when it crashed about seven seconds later in a farmer's field.
The investigation is on going and focusing on a wide range of issues including the aspects of low and slow speed (below 300 KIAS) engine failure in the CT155 and ejection criteria. Also, the investigation will examine engine performance after bird ingestion and aircrew life support equipment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.