RVG8tor
Well Known Member
It was a nice night tonight so I flew up to a local chapter meeting. On the return at 2500' I hit a bird! It miraculously made it thought the prop and hit the lower right cowl, flexed it enough to leave a 3" crack in the paint and maybe the fiberglass, I will not know till tomorrow.
I would like to know if anyone knows what kind of bird flies at night at this kind of altitude for the life of me I can't figure out what it might be. It had gray feathers, kind of like a pigeon.
I feel very lucky that it did not go through the canopy, I was thankful to have formation support, sort of. I flew with another guy from my airport, not night formation but 1.5 mile in trail I kept track of his strobe and we had altitude separation. Had I needed to make an emergency landing it was nice to have him there on the radio.
Ran through things logically, first, fly the plane, okay it is flying straight so no damage to control surfaces. Next, actually simultaneously scan engine instruments, all is normal. Next, fuel levels not sure if it hit the leading edge, actually in flight I thought it was maybe the wheel, I saw it just as it entered my landing lights and that sure was too late to react. So with everything normal, I made an uneventful landing and taxi back to sort out the damage.
We were only doing 125kts to save on the fuel burn so that sure helped minimize the damage. Any bird experts out there, I sure would like to hear from you! I just whet over 168 hours in my first 10 months of flying. I had my first main tire flat day before yesterday so someone really does not want me flying this week.
Cheers
I would like to know if anyone knows what kind of bird flies at night at this kind of altitude for the life of me I can't figure out what it might be. It had gray feathers, kind of like a pigeon.
I feel very lucky that it did not go through the canopy, I was thankful to have formation support, sort of. I flew with another guy from my airport, not night formation but 1.5 mile in trail I kept track of his strobe and we had altitude separation. Had I needed to make an emergency landing it was nice to have him there on the radio.
Ran through things logically, first, fly the plane, okay it is flying straight so no damage to control surfaces. Next, actually simultaneously scan engine instruments, all is normal. Next, fuel levels not sure if it hit the leading edge, actually in flight I thought it was maybe the wheel, I saw it just as it entered my landing lights and that sure was too late to react. So with everything normal, I made an uneventful landing and taxi back to sort out the damage.
We were only doing 125kts to save on the fuel burn so that sure helped minimize the damage. Any bird experts out there, I sure would like to hear from you! I just whet over 168 hours in my first 10 months of flying. I had my first main tire flat day before yesterday so someone really does not want me flying this week.
Cheers
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