Let's see how the final vote goes. I'd hope there might be several possibilities of a "signature" bird for the logo. If there are, I'll provide an opinion from a graphic artist perspective, but the groups feelings are what ultimately matter most.

Your yellow and black color scheme is very high contrast and probably gives great visability in the air. Painting the canopy in Photoshop is a possibility. Does the bird still exist? (thinking about a possible reshoot at a more profile angle) Extracting the airplane from the existing background should not be a problem. My DB was sitting on the runway before I extracted it from the background.

Greg