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I have delayed posting this information while I settled everything with the FAA and my insurance. But as I am about to get my Bravo back in the air, I thought it was time to relay what occurred back on 14 May 2021, in hopes that everyone can learn something from what happened to me. BLUF: A bird strike caused a gear malfunction that forced me to attempt a landing in a misconfigured airplane. So, there I was... The flight started at Castroville Municipal (west of San Antonio) where I hangar my Mooney. I conducted a normal preflight noting no issues with the gear or any other aircraft system. I taxied uneventfully to the self-serve fuel and added 40 gallons of fuel to the 35 gallons already in the tanks. While I was only planning about an hour flight, the extra fuel came in handy on this day. I then taxied to Rwy 16, did a normal runup and departed Runway 16 VFR to the northwest on a beautiful spring day in Texas. I flew to Hondo, where I conducted a couple practice approaches. I then flew back to Castroville VFR and entered the pattern for practice pattern work. I did one uneventful low approach to Runway 16. However, on the go when I raised the gear, I heard a thump and was aware that the gear movement seamed louder than normal. I normally don't hear much noise from the gear with my noise cancelling headset on, but this time I did. On downwind for my second pattern at Castroville, I lowered the gear. Again, I noticed that the gear movement was making more noise than usual. At the end of the gear movement, I noticed that the gear unsafe light remained on and the gear actuator circuit breaker had popped. At this point I notified an aircraft that had just landed at Castroville that I had an unsafe gear indication and asked if he could look at the gear as a flew by. Additionally, I had a Ag-Tractor who was flying in the area, join to a chase position and look over the gear. Both pilots reported that the right main and nose gear appeared down, but the left gear was barely out of the gear well and jammed against the inner gear door. At this point I departed the pattern to the south to attempt to troubleshoot the gear. So I went to the section in the PoH for nose gear and one main down and one main up. I am be facetious; there is nothing in the PoH for misconfigured gear. The way the Bravo is mechanized, with a gear box driving push rods to move the gear, they should all be down or up. But here I was in a misconfigured Mooney. I figured I would try the manual extension per the PoH for FAILURE OF LANDING GEAR TO EXTEND ELECTRICALLY. The gear handle was already down and the circuit breaker already popped, so I attempted to lower the gear by pulling the manual gear T handle. I had little hope this would do anything, since the gear was already in the down position, but I figured it was worth a try. As suspected, the T handle would not budge, as the gear was already in the extended position. At this point I attempted to break the left gear loose by g-ing up the airplane (positive and negative), and yawing the airplane, but nothing helped. I thought I would rather land gear up in the grass than land with one main up on the runway, so I attempted to raise the gear by putting the gear handle up and pushing the gear actuator circuit breaker in. However, the circuit breaker would not reset and the gear would not move. While I was doing all this, the pilots who were assisting me from the ground called the Castroville Fire Department and EMS to respond. While I awaited their response, I assessed my options. I decided to land in the grass, since the recent rain had softened the ground a bit, and I felt like this would lessen the chance of a ground loop if I could slowly settle the left wing in the grass. At this point I also decided to transition over to Kelly Field where I would have an Air Force crash response team to help if things went badly. I contacted San Antonio Approach, declared an emergency and proceeded to Kelly Field. Once in the pattern at Kelly Field, I did a couple of low approaches to survey the area and to select an appropriate spot to land. I communicated with the crash response team via the Tower about where I was going to land and then set up for a right base turn to land abeam Rwy 16 in the grass on the east side of the runway. On final I selected full flaps. Then as I approached landing, I pulled the fuel mixture to full lean, turned the fuel selector to off, and popped the latch on the door. I flew the aircraft just above the grass until the stall warning horn came on then eased it down while attempting to keep the left wing from settling. As I was losing aileron control authority, I started to ease the left wing down into the grass. It was at this point that I realized the wing stop settling and the left gear must have extended. The Fire Chief later told me that the left main extend about a second or two before it touched down in the grass. I can only assume that the bouncing through the grass broke the gear free. Once stopped, I turned off the main power, ensured the fuel selector was off, then deplaned. The Crash Response Team and the Airfield Manager met me at the airplane and also notified the FAA of the incident. Within minutes I was getting called by the FSDO about the incident. The FSDO requested pictures of the damage and a verbal account. He also worked with me, the Airfield Manager, and the Crash Response Team to provide clearance to tow the airplane to Atlantic Aviation's ramp. So what happened? During inspection of the left main gear, we found small feather fragments up in the gear well. We determined that during my first pattern at Castroville, a bird impacted the left inner gear door as it was opening/open to allow the main gear to extend/retract. The impact ripped the inner gear door off its hinge and left it hanging by the actuator and turned sideways. When I retracted the gear following the low approach, the inner gear door jammed into the left main gear hub cap (dust cover per the parts catalog), which caused the gear to jam about 20 degrees out of the gear well. When I tried to extend the gear the last time, the gear actuator did its best to force the gear down. In doing so it stretched and bent every component between the actuator and the left main gear. It is amazing to me that despite the mangled gear mechanism, the gear still managed to get into the down position once it broke loose. The lesson to me is reinforcement of what I learned in my F-16 days. You need to understand how your aircraft systems work if you want to be prepared for the unexpected. Not everything that can go wrong is in the PoH. And the Mooney PoH does a poor job of explaining how all the aircraft systems work. I have learned my systems by owner assisted annuals/maintenance. And don't forget to use external resources. I used other aircraft in the area to help me assess the situation. I also used them to contact emergency services. Once I decided to transition to Kelly Field, I used San Antonio Approach, Kelly Tower, Kelly Emergency Response Team, and finally the Airfield Manager to help me safely get my Bravo on the ground and to the ramp. After 8 months of delays getting gear parts for a 33-year-old airplane manufactured, my Bravo should be back in the air next week. I hope this incident provides one more nugget in your clue bag. Dave

Have not been flying much at night in the past few years. Tonight, a friend needed a ride. On right base to final to my home airport, I was looking toward the runway, heard a pop, looked forward and saw blood and feathers right in front of my face. Was about 1000 AGL. I have previously noticed some crazy swift type bird that seems to like to fly around at night, I suspect it was on e of these. Glad I did the thicker glass, not sure it would have come through either way, but still. There is no evidence of it hitting anything besides the windshield. I was at about 110mph at time. Photo attached...must have been a fairly small bird. Poor guy. While I recognize the higher risks in night flying, I thought bird strikes were not high on the list of things to happen. For those who fly at a lot at night, is this more common than I thought? As a side note, I often forget how peaceful night flying can be. On a smooth night I is like floating along in some strange time warp. It almost offsets the increased risk in case of a forced landing.

One of my Florida clients posted this today. The guy is lucky to be alive (ff to 1:39). Great composure. http://www.wflafm.com/articles/wtf-news-471312/shock-video-giant-bird-slams-through-12095780/