Near bird strikes, 4th in two months, bird tornadoes..etc

bunk22

bunk22

Well-Known Member
...granted, NAS Kingsville has the most reported bird strikes and near misses of any airport in the US. At least that's what we are told as we are in a major bird migratory track. Now, when I say near misses, I'm talking within feet and today, missed by maybe a foot.

I was leading a section (2 plane), 10 miles northwest of the field, 2,500' and 310KIAS. I was in a slight right turn, leveled my wings and looked forward through the HUD and noticed a small black, flat, speck. I thought, what is that speck and I no kidding just squint at it as it gets larger. The hawk or vulture had its wings spread so it was flat but at co-altitude, HUD level. Wish I had a video tape it for later HUD review. When I realize it's a bird, I can't go right as my wing is out there but I do a quick right wing down and back as the bird tucks wings and starts down to his right. Beak to beak with the bird. I had the flight doc in the back seat, just laughing after the fact. He could see its eyes he said, with a chuckle. I wasn't so amused lol Luckily the bird had better SA than me, avoiding a bad situation...into canopy at 300+ knots and also missing my intake.

After the bird passed, I notice at my 2 o'clock, about one thousand feet above, a bird tornado. I've seen them before and this one was no different. The birds I guess catch a thermal and spin around in this big twister. There had to be 100+ birds in this one, probably 500-800' high of large vultures, hawks, or something. I had seen two larger last year, with one having probably 300+ birds with birds spilling out of the edges, just hundreds of large birds in a small area.

Anyway, 4th near bird mid-air in two months, all within 10 feet, this was the closest. Fun times in Kingsville.
 
rframe said:
bird sounded hostile, you should've switched to guns...
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I should have but I had no clue what it was, he reacted better than I did lol Damn big arse birds all over the place!!! I fly a small jet so they are bad but as we all know, they are bad for big planes as well, like E-6's or A320's. I do believe more T-45's have been lost and/or definitely damaged to birds than to any other cause.
 
Those birds are always in the worst spots man. I've had my fair share of close calls, even while putting around in a bug squisher.
 
JustinS said:
Those birds are always in the worst spots man. I've had my fair share of close calls, even while putting around in a bug squisher.
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If birds are so smart, why do they fly around airports and airplanes? I was taxing out one day and had three seagulls fly wing off me as I taxied. I wasn't going very fast but I guess they could use the airflow coming off the wings.
 
bunk22 said:
I should have but I had no clue what it was, he reacted better than I did lol Damn big arse birds all over the place!!! I fly a small jet so they are bad but as we all know, they are bad for big planes as well, like E-6's or A320's. I do believe more T-45's have been lost and/or definitely damaged to birds than to any other cause.
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Yeah they are no joke, My student almost hit a mature bald eagle last weekend about 300' after takeoff...that thing was as big as the Cessna 150 we were flying, I swear! I about crapped myself.
 
Anyone else find themselves ducking below the dashboard in that last second as the bird hurls towards you? I've caught myself doing it a few times without even thinking about it.
 
Jpax said:
Anyone else find themselves ducking below the dashboard in that last second as the bird hurls towards you? I've caught myself doing it a few times without even thinking about it.
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I ducked like you read about today lol...no where to go really but it's reactionary.
 
Honestly guys, probably the best thing to do when you find yourself within seconds of a bird is to just keep on your current path and altitude. The birds are WAY more maneuverable than any airplane. If you start yanking and banking and trying to out-manuever the bird you are just confusing them. They don't want to hit you any more than you want to hit them (even though those vultures sometimes seem to be a little suicidal).

Those bird tornadoes are scary things. Yes, avoid those if at all possible.
 
Okie_Pilot said:
Honestly guys, probably the best thing to do when you find yourself within seconds of a bird is to just keep on your current path and altitude. The birds are WAY more maneuverable than any airplane. If you start yanking and banking and trying to out-manuever the bird you are just confusing them. They don't want to hit you any more than you want to hit them (even though those vultures sometimes seem to be a little suicidal).

Those bird tornadoes are scary things. Yes, avoid those if at all possible.
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So you're the bird whisper huh? :)
 
I was just watching the episode of Flying Wild Alaska last night where the guy hit the bird, that was some pretty good footage of a bird strike, complete with guts on one of the external GoPro's, the whole thing unfolded like "heeeey what's that up there... :: pause ::... hey... wait... bird... bird!... BIRD! SMACK"... luckily in that case it got pureed by the prop and it was just bird mush all over, but the passenger definitely ducked below the panel just as it hit.
 
Okie_Pilot said:
Honestly guys, probably the best thing to do when you find yourself within seconds of a bird is to just keep on your current path and altitude. The birds are WAY more maneuverable than any airplane. If you start yanking and banking and trying to out-manuever the bird you are just confusing them. They don't want to hit you any more than you want to hit them (even though those vultures sometimes seem to be a little suicidal).

Those bird tornadoes are scary things. Yes, avoid those if at all possible.
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Yeah, MOST birds will tuck their wings and dive bomb the hell out of the way. Or so I've been told by a vet, if that has any merit. :)
 
smack300 said:
So you're the bird whisper huh? :)
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1000+ hours of being 65-95' AGL within a wing tip's distance next to the power lines in which the birds like to perch on.... Yeah, we deal with the birds for 8 hours a day. ;)

(See signature. This method unfortunately doesn't ALWAYS work. But it works most of the time. Luckily, I have a blender on the front and not a vacuum, so it's not a big deal if a small bird goes through. :))
 
Okie_Pilot said:
Honestly guys, probably the best thing to do when you find yourself within seconds of a bird is to just keep on your current path and altitude. The birds are WAY more maneuverable than any airplane. If you start yanking and banking and trying to out-manuever the bird you are just confusing them. They don't want to hit you any more than you want to hit them (even though those vultures sometimes seem to be a little suicidal).

Those bird tornadoes are scary things. Yes, avoid those if at all possible.
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When you are flying at 300-400KIAS, that's all you can do sometimes is stay level, continue on. My reaction was instinct as he tucked and rolled right, so did I. Sucks when you're in division and a few large hawk fly's right between you and Dash 2, nothing you can do. Since 07, we have lost 2-3 T-45's due to bird strikes and I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to 3 different aircraft. It's all cleaned up now but this bird impacted the jet at ~330KIAS, had blood and guts all over. Luckily didn't hit the canopy.

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bunk22 said:
When you are flying at 300-400KIAS, that's all you can do sometimes is stay level, continue on. My reaction was instinct as he tucked and rolled right, so did I. Sucks when you're in division and a few large hawk fly's right between you and Dash 2, nothing you can do. Since 07, we have lost 2-3 T-45's due to bird strikes and I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to 3 different aircraft. It's all cleaned up now but this bird impacted the jet at ~330KIAS, had blood and guts all over. Luckily didn't hit the canopy.
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Yeah, sometimes there's not much one can do. We've had a vulture come down at about a 45 degree angle, hit at the rear of the cowl, went through the cowl and pushed the firewall back about 3-4 inches. That was a P.I.T.A.

Then we had a duck destroy a leading edge in which we replaced the wings.

And we only hang around 110kts.... Can't imagine 300kts+
 
In the plane I got my private in we had a much bigger issue with land animals. The guy who trained in it before me hit a deer on the runway, had to rebuild the engine and everything. 2 years later, I landed at like 23:00 on a mostly dark field and hit a fox on the runway with the left gear. Never was near a bird though.
 
A T-45 struck a large bird in the vicinity I was in yesterday, 8-10 miles NW of the field, 2500'. It was a section executing a section approach and it hit the wing at 150KIAS so not much damage.
 
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