Bird strike!

[UteM20F]

While on a flight from Salt Lake (U42) to Tri-cities WA (KPSC) early this morning, we hit a bird in the blackness over the Great Salt Lake.  It was jarring!  The windshield doesn't seem to be damaged at all, but it doesn't smell good.  We think it was a duck.

We feel lucky, as my brother-in-law, the GIB, hit a swan in his Idaho Air National Guard F4 some 40 years ago, ending the flying career of his pilot as it smashed through the canopy.  My bro-in-law ended up landing that plane from the back seat, getting all kinds of flying awards in Washington DC.

Ute

[EricJ]

8 minutes ago, UteM20F said:

While on a flight from Salt Lake (U42) to Tri-cities WA (KPSC) early this morning, we hit a bird in the blackness over the Great Salt Lake.  It was jarring!  The windshield doesn't seem to be damaged at all, but it doesn't smell good.  We think it was a duck.

Ick.   Those guys and geese do fly at night, which is pretty scary.

8 minutes ago, UteM20F said:

We feel lucky, as my brother-in-law, the GIB, hit a swan in his Idaho Air National Guard F4 some 40 years ago, ending the flying career of his pilot as it smashed through the canopy.  My bro-in-law ended up landing that plane from the back seat, getting all kinds of flying awards in Washington DC.

I think I read that story a long time ago.   Very interesting.

[Bolter]

53 minutes ago, UteM20F said:

While on a flight from Salt Lake (U42) to Tri-cities WA (KPSC) early this morning, we hit a bird in the blackness over the Great Salt Lake.  It was jarring!  The windshield doesn't seem to be damaged at all, but it doesn't smell good.  We think it was a duck.

We feel lucky, as my brother-in-law, the GIB, hit a swan in his Idaho Air National Guard F4 some 40 years ago, ending the flying career of his pilot as it smashed through the canopy.  My bro-in-law ended up landing that plane from the back seat, getting all kinds of flying awards in Washington DC.

Ute

 

Found a long article and short srticle on your BIL's back seat landing:

Short: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/04/09/Birds-collide-with-National-Guard-jet/3846387176400/

Long: https://itd.idaho.gov/wp-content/Aero/Publications/RF/2011/RF_Spring_2011.pdf

[UteM20F]

3 minutes ago, Bolter said:

Found a long article and short srticle on your BIL's back seat landing:

Thanks Bolter.  I read the story the first time in Reader's Digest, Drama in Real Life, when I was a teenager.  I met my soon-to-be wife some years later, and was amazed the story was of her brother.  

I look forward to reading these accounts again.

Thanks,

Ute

[0TreeLemur]

You can report it here:

https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/wildlife

The bird won't get a phone number to call. 

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, UteM20F said:

Thanks Bolter.  I read the story the first time in Reader's Digest, Drama in Real Life, when I was a teenager. 

I think that's where I read it, too! 

[Schllc]

The fact that an inexperienced pilot could fly in formation land an f4 after an incident like that with no experience in the plane is nothing short of incredible. And at twilight with limited visibility, a broken windshield and limited controls…
anyone who has ever tried to fly formation knows exactly what I am saying. 

[Pinecone]

14 hours ago, Schllc said:

The fact that an inexperienced pilot could fly in formation land an f4 after an incident like that with no experience in the plane is nothing short of incredible. And at twilight with limited visibility, a broken windshield and limited controls…
anyone who has ever tried to fly formation knows exactly what I am saying. 

Smart pilots make sure their GIB (guy in back) gets enough stick time to fly formation somewhat and be able to get it on the runway.  Reuse of plane is optional.

 

I doubt that was a duck, a duck would have be in the cockpit with you and all over you and the interior.

[Schllc]

The article said it was a goose. 

[UteM20F]

9 hours ago, Pinecone said:

I doubt that was a duck, a duck would have be in the cockpit with you and all over you and the interior.

You're probably right.  I only thought duck because it smelled like duck entrails.  We were climbing at the time, so airspeed was probably only 100k, and the splatter isn't as big as you would expect a duck to be.

Using the link that @0TreeLemur provided, it says we can send the feathers in to the Smithsonian and they will try to identify the species of the wayward bird.  We'll try to collect the few feathers that remain and hope for the best.

1 hour ago, Schllc said:

The article said it was a goose. 

I saw that, but my BIL says when the necropsy came back, it was a Tundra Swan.

[GeeBee]

"The RF-RC reconnaissance fighter was cruising at 550 mph about 1,000 feet above the southern Idaho desert west of Boise when a 'bird strike' blasted a hole in the canopy, crumpling it and striking the shoulder of Capt. Gregory Engelbreit, the pilot, said National Guard Col. Robert Corbell in Boise."

Obviously the military has training requirements for low altitude high speed flight, but bird strike is one of the reasons why there is a 250 knot limit below 10,000 for civilians as it aligns the bird impact design requirements for jet windshields with the realities of low altitude high mass bird strikes. A while back Houston Center experimented with allowing high speed climb outs. Considering the area, I thought it was a bad idea to allow airliners to exceed 250 below 10,000. Some places it works but not near a marsh area.

 

 

 

[dkkim73]

@UteM20F Glad you guys are OK! I will be flying to SLC in the next couple years to visit my son, so I am following all your airport and bird posts

@GeeBee Did not know that restriction was bird strike related, very interesting info! 

Articles are great, thanks for the links.

DK

[Ragsf15e]

In the Strike Eagle, there was some weird airflow around the canopy, and a lot of bird strikes ended up hitting the wso in the face.  There was a particularly interesting one at RAF Lakenheath back in the 90s where they were low level at 500’/500kts and took a duck.  It went through the canopy and the pieces of (now fluid) duck and canopy hit the wso in the face.  He was blind, couldn’t hear or talk to the pilot and thought they were about to hit the ground, so he ejected. now, normally there’s a switch in the backseat that is armed on takeoff, which makes the ejection system eject both crewmembers. However, either it was moved in the birdstrike flail, or it was never armed, because only the backseat went. Meanwhile, the pilot was fine except now he had a convertible and no backseat. he ended up flying the jet to a nearby base and landing. Here’s a short discussion of it. I found on a quick search. 
https://www.valleyaviationsociety.co.uk/liberty-wing-vas

 

[GeeBee]

Basically a Part 25 jet windscreen has to withstand a 4 pound bird impact at cruise speed and any size bird below 250 knots. When you exceed those parameters, all bets are off. Your Mooney windshield really has no standards for bird impact protection.

[Brandt]

Possible poultry deviation…. Advise when ready to copy a number.

We clearly need a reg to require ducks to file IFR at night…

[UteM20F]

On 4/24/2024 at 3:56 PM, 0TreeLemur said:

You can report it here:

https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/wildlife

Thanks @0TreeLemur.  We submitted the online report and sent the few pieces of feathers that remained to the email at the Smithsonian that the report specified.  Today we got an email that they discovered the culprit: a green-tailed towhee (Pipilo chlorurus).  It is a large sparrow, weighing about 29 grams.  Truly a duck would have caused significant damage.  

Ute

[MikeOH]

19 minutes ago, UteM20F said:

...and sent the few pieces of feathers that remained to the email at the Smithsonian..

Damn! The Smithsonian has a pretty sophisticated email system

[Hank]

9 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Damn! The Smithsonian has a pretty sophisticated email system

Guess they accept snarge by email now! Who knew? Like the old Hank Jr. song, "Fax Me a Beer." If only it worked like that . . . .

[dkkim73]

On 4/26/2024 at 4:47 AM, GeeBee said:

... and any size bird below 250 knots. 

[dkkim73]

On 4/25/2024 at 9:05 PM, Ragsf15e said:

so he ejected. now, normally there’s a switch in the backseat that is armed on takeoff, which makes the ejection system eject both crewmembers. However, either it was moved in the birdstrike flail, or it was never armed, because only the backseat went. Meanwhile, the pilot was fine except now he had a convertible and no backseat. he ended up flying the jet to a nearby base and landing. Here’s a short discussion of it. I found on a quick search. 

That's interesting. I would have assumed the WSOs would always fly in Aft Initiate. Even as a flight doc, once the pilot would get to know you enough to trust you're not constantly trying to kill them, they would do the same in the D model. 

One of the edge-case nightmares in Normal mode would be punching out and leaving the pilot to die in a situation like that if things got rushed or jumbled and you didn't turn the selector valve. 

I always assumed a duck would be a bigger liability to the front seat, but now I wonder if that would've been true in the -B and -D as well... 

PS. insert fowl joke (snort). 

[GeeBee]

30 minutes ago, dkkim73 said:

They factored in, altitude capability in the regulation. 

[Hank]

32 minutes ago, dkkim73 said:

 

Just now, GeeBee said:

They factored in, altitude capability in the regulation. 

So how high do they fly???

[GeeBee]

They also only considered the North American continent in formulating the regulation.

For instance the Rupert Vulture over Asia can get up to 29,000 feet.

 

[Ragsf15e]

1 hour ago, dkkim73 said:

That's interesting. I would have assumed the WSOs would always fly in Aft Initiate. Even as a flight doc, once the pilot would get to know you enough to trust you're not constantly trying to kill them, they would do the same in the D model. 

One of the edge-case nightmares in Normal mode would be punching out and leaving the pilot to die in a situation like that if things got rushed or jumbled and you didn't turn the selector valve. 

I always assumed a duck would be a bigger liability to the front seat, but now I wonder if that would've been true in the -B and -D as well... 

PS. insert fowl joke (snort). 

Oh yeah, they were supposed to be in aft initiate for sure!  There was always a controversy on whether they never set it or it was moved into normal during the flailing.  The switch would be difficult to accidentally move…. In this case, it saved the aircraft and the pilot from ejection!

[UteM20F]

What are the odds?  We hit another small bird last night in the blackness over the desert.  This one hit the leading edge and like the last one, didn't cause any damage.  We didn't realize we hit it until we were cleaning off the bugs after the flight and there was this area of blood and feathers.  We'd already sprayed water on it.  We'll still send in the few tiny feathers and hope the Smithsonian can identify it for us.

I have just under 600 hours total time, and these are the only birds I've ever hit.  And both in 5-6 weeks.

Ute