Hit 2 birds on takeoff today

viper548

Well-Known Member
I was doing touch and go's with a student this morning after the 3rd one a flock of birds flew in front of the aircraft just after takeoff. One bird hit an inspection cover under the right wing and left a bunch of feathers in there. Another bird hit the leading edge of the right wing near the wingtip. I called tower to report the birdstrike and told them we needed a full stop to check out the damage. We landed and pulled of on a taxiway to check the damage, passing the dead bird on the runway as we exited, shut down and checked for damage. I didn't like the large dent (about the size of a fist) in the wing so we started back up and went back to parking...A guy from the tower even came out to look at the damage. The mechanic had the dent fixed in less than an hour.
 
Scary crap! Students freak when things start hitting the airframe don't they? My kill list includes a dove and 2 bats (yeah, a batstrike!)

At my home field there's all kinds of wildlife- the worst was flying through a spiralling column of buzzards on downwind. Those things are lethal, even at 90 knots. Good thing they're manuverable.

The funniest time I've had with wildlife was trying to scare a family of coyotes away from crossing the active by cutting them off at a taxiway. The departing aircraft expressed his thanks and said he'd "never seen anyone herding coyotes in a Cessna before..."
 
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