Bird Strike on Checkride

planesiscool

planesiscool

New Member
So today the weather was as close to perfect as you could get with calm winds. It also happened to be the day of my private check ride; I was thinking the stars had aligned. Well, I was wrong. I did a soft field take off followed by a successful soft field landing. Then I did a short field take off and on my approach for the short field landing a bird came out of nowhere and at the last minute my examiner saw it and banked sharp to the left. The bird smacked the wing, which did not do any damage, and I did a successful short field landing. Then we taxied back to survey the damage and the examiner gave me a second letter of discontinuance. My first was for deciding not to take the check ride because of winds the day of my oral. My examiner also said, "I"ve been flying for 30 years and that is the first time I've been in a plane with a bird strike." I move to alaska friday and I am scheduled to finish my check ride thursday but the weather looks marginal. We will see what happens but I am planning on taking some bird repellant to spray on the wings on thursday.
 
fly22 said:
Man your luck has been down. Keep your head up and stay with it.
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Thanks man. Yeah I hope I can finish thursday because if I have to do it in Anchorage that is a whole new ball game which means spending more $$$. I am not a fan of that.
 
Haha wow glad you're ok.

You just can't seem to have any luck with your checkride!!
 
yeah, bird strikes are pretty scary...The first time I had one I was flying the g1000 for the first time under the hood...it was at night, about 2500 feet AGL...holding over an NDB...I left my landing light on because there was traffic in the area of the airport I was holding over...all of a sudden I see my instructor start ducking and BAM...i ended up seeing one hit the left wing. I think it hit right on the landing light lense...no damage.

Hopefully you get to finish up your checkride, it is very rewarding!!!
 
Don't worry about it. Think of it as a "break". Discontinuance doesn't show up anywhere in the records, AFAIK. When I was at FLX, one of my buddies was on his recurrent checkride when a hawk came through the windshield and sent the check airman to the hospital. He passed. I think that's the appropriate way to do deal with a birdstrike: "Well, you didn't freak out and we survived. You pass."
 
ctab5060X said:
If I had a nickel for every bird I have hit... I would be on a beach somewhere drinking something with alcohol in it!
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haha, we'll I'm a 160 hour pilot...I've only collected one as of this far...there have been some other close calls!
 
fisher37 said:
haha, we'll I'm a 160 hour pilot...I've only collected one as of this far...there have been some other close calls!
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FYI, it is unnerving when you hit 5 in one night... you start to think the "boogey man" is out to get you. :insane:

On the flipside, there was the night the my observer and I could not stop laughing because we hit one bird three times:nana2:
 
ctab5060X said:
FYI, it is unnerving when you hit 5 in one night... you start to think the "boogey man" is out to get you. :insane:

On the flipside, there was the night the my observer and I could not stop laughing because we hit one bird three times:nana2:
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hahahaha...that's awesome. The birds are getting quite bad around our airport...idk what they're gona do about it...but they stay pretty much in the traffic pattern on our runways where we do stop/touch n goes...
 
fisher37 said:
hahahaha...that's awesome. The birds are getting quite bad around our airport...idk what they're gona do about it...but they stay pretty much in the traffic pattern on our runways where we do stop/touch n goes...
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Give them radios and make them give traffic reports (or talk to tower) whichever you have. :D
 
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