anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Just wondering if anyone has tagged a bird before? i sometimes chase flocks of geese away that may drift over our area, i keep a distance though, wouldn't wanna hit one of them.

sean

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

An old pattern model at our field did a pass just as the resident flock of Turkey Vultures came by. There was a great "whack" and then silence. The pieces of the model drifted down and the bird limped off, probably to die. My Sig Wonder was chased by a Red-Tailed Hawk which closed on it with talons outstretched buy it did not make contact. Shocked everyone who was watching.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Never hit one (in the context you refer to) but played "combat" with a hawk. He tried to tackle it from behind and bounced off. No damage to either combatant. I stopped playing with them after that close encounter.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

We had a red tailed hawk take out a trainer 2 years ago! His talons got cought in the center sheeting and neather the bird or the plane could control the other, needless to say it dident end well!

bird ended up with a broken wing and leg, trainer was smashed up but repairible.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

We commonly chase the turkey buzzards off... (they come right back..:eek:)

I have accidentally "goosed" a red-tail hawk with a sailplane (riding light ridge lift side by side and i bobbled...) He flew off somewhat upset...:) Next day he ripped my airplane apart. Never could fly that color scheme at that slope again. Don't tell me they are color blind... they KNOW that color scheme! And they have told each other to KILL IT! (and now the guys using the slope in front of Cal-State Hayward know why the red-tail hawks eat red and blue airplanes.:eek:)

The red-Wing blackbirds at the slope near Del-Val resevoir would attack any slope plane that came too close to the nests. I've landed with many a beak hole in my wings. They could time an attack to be able to go THROUGH the wing of a slope racer doing 120+ The racer was toast... the bird flew around in triumph most times.

Don't get into a mid-air with a bird... no one really wins. But usually the bird can figure out how to take a chunk out of the airplane without getting fatallly injured.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

I was landing a GWS Formosa in a large grass field that was about a foot deep. Some kind of small bird flew up out of the grass right into the bottom of my wing. The plane flipped over and landed on it's top! No damage. Deep grass, friend or foe?:eek:

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Those red-tailed hawks are awesome!

I was flying my OlyII in lift with one when I decided to exit, so did the hawk following at a good distance. :) I made a left turn and so did he. I thought this was coincidental, until my right turn found the hawk doing the same thing. I then made a series of turns to witness the hawk doing the same thing and slowly closing the distance. [>:] When the distance got too close (I then got very nervous) I put the glider in a steep dive. Yep you guessed it, the hawk did the same thing. I had pretty good airspeed built up, so I pulled back hard on the stick, did a loop and came up behind the hawk. :D This bird had never seen anything fly in this fashion and had no idea what to do, just flew away in a very sporadic fashion. [X(] I then breathed a sigh of relief. [sm=wink.gif]

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

i almost hit a rabit and a sheep on take off!

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

wow! thanks for the replies! did the hawk with the broken wing and leg survive???

sean

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

A friend of mine IanB here on RCU hit one with a GIANT SCALE plane.... I will let him tell the story, but man it sounds funny.... I am sure it wasn't so funny to him when it happened, but he laughs about it now.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

I nailed some sort of small bird with a SuperSportster .60. It happend really quick. I was in a turn at full bore. All the sudden I see two small birds fly up right in front of the plane. They both dove down and I thought were just avoiding me. I didn't hear any boom or see feathers fly. To be safe I throttle down and landed. Stuck in the fuel residue on the stab were three little down type feathers. I could find no other trace of any contact. Maybe the tips of the prop just skimmed him. I half expected a seen like when Randy Johnson hit that pigeon in spring training.

david

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Flying a Nomad powered glider in the early sixties. A red tailed hawk decided he didn't care for it. He hit it at full speed and the pieces came drifting down (except for the radio, battery, escapement and the .020 which came a little faster). He circled and watched if fall and then flew off.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Yep. Been there, done that, wasn't a happy camper. On my first day out flying completely, 100% solo (my instructor wasn't even at the field that day), I had been out flying around and doing pretty good. I had about 3-4 flights under my belt and I was getting ready to head on home. Then, I uttered that infamous words, "One more flight, and I'm outta here". Well, I was outta there whether I wanted to be or not. I got the old trainer plane (old, yeah right, it had been flying about 2 months) ready to fly, pointed into the wind and hit full throttle. After take off I gained a good bit of altitude and went into a left turn to come back and parallel the runway. About midway through the turn I hear what I thought was a shotgun blast. Next thing I know, my plane has instantly become a high powered lawn dart with no wings and still running at full throttle. A couple of seconds later I hear another loud noise and then I no longer hear the engine running. Come to find out, I made my turn directly into a big black bird and neither of us faired to well. I lost a plane, and the bird landed in the pond at the end of our runway and sank to a watery grave.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Last Summer, we had a Scouts day at our Club's field with about 8-10 scouts. We had a presentation in the morning going over servo operation, control surfaces, engines and how they work etc. During the Q&A session, one of the scouts asked if we had ever hit a bird. All of the responses were the same, we had heard of it happening, but not either seen or done it ourselves. Later in the day, we took the scouts up on buddy boxes for their first taste of R/C Flying. On my 11th flight, I found the scout flying my plane beginning to get out of the pattern. I took the plane and started a gently right turn to bring it around to avoid flying over the pits. BAM the plane exploded by the right wing ripping off of the plane and the fuse disintegrating. It was so loud that everyone thought I hit another plane, but after finding the pieces, we found a 12" concave dent in the right right back to the spar. Definitely a bird, but where it came from and where it went is still a mystery.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

I've never hit one with a model, however I did hit one with a Cessna-150[X(]. My student and I were taking off. Just prior to breaking ground there was a bang, and a bunch of feathers in the cabin. We aborted the take off and taxied to the ramp. We struck a bird with the wing close to the fuselage - right where the cabin vent inlet is. More feathers and blood on the plane.

You'd think the gulls would learn to avoid the active runway:D

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Dave, you think that's bad?? My wife is a flight dispatcher for a small cargo airline here in Dallas and just last week one of their pilots was just about to lift off for a flight home and a herd of deer went running across the runway. Of course, one of them didn't quite make it out of the way and impacted with the propellor. Talk about blood everywhere. I've seen the pictures. It wasn't pretty AT ALL.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

At the risk of getting too far off topic. I'll relate one other event at the local airport. One of my co-workers was landing at dusk in a Cessna Cardinal and hit a deer on the runway. Not pretty. The deer was killed and the airplane very badly damaged. Noone in the plane was hurt.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Oh yeah. Forgot to mention the pilot. He was fine. The prop was toast. The plane was sent to have "things" removed from the engine. On a good note, the local police force had a grand ol' barbecue that night. Right out at the airport.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

A friend of mine had (notice I said HAD) a TT fun fly P-51 and h was on the last flight of the day and when doing his last pass around the field to line up with the runway he was kind of low and flew over the bushes and such before you get to the trees and he spooked about 30 of those little sparrows type birds and they all few up right in front of his plane, talk about a bird strike... more like bird strikes. They hit the prop the wing the fuse totally destroyed the plane. A little Pissed he wiped it down the best he could and threw it in his hobby room to gut out the gear later and his wife asked him what that smell was a few days later so he went to the plane and said it reeked and he found a bird wing in his wing, Not sure where the rest of the bird was but he had the wing.EWWW

Dauntae

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Saw it happen once. Guy at our club with a glider, thermally with a couple of red tail hawks, but apparently one of them didn't like it too much. We all saw the hawk swoop down on the plane, but didn't think much of it.

After the guy landed he called us over; there were about six holes in the top of the wing where the hawks talons struck.
Dennis-

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Wow! i have a pic on my laptop of what a king air looks like after a deer hits the prop. I am at work now and i will post it later. I actually got the picture from RCU, not sure who posted it but its kinda gory!

sean

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

I did!

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

One day I was helping one of my students who recently soloed with his .60 tower Trainer when a Zamuro (turkey buzzard- a bird that looks like a small Condor) flew just in the same path he was going but in front of the airplane at a short distance so I told him twice to be carefull with the bird (it was almost the same size of the plane) but as he was comming to land, hi didn´t took care of my advice (this new pilots....) and hit his left side wing to the right side wing of the bird. After the impact, the bird banked to the left and the airplane roll to inverted in a blink so I took the radio as fast as you can imagine and flew it inverted until it was at a safe altitude to roll it upright and land it (he was not too close to runway when all this happens).

After inspection we saw not much damage to the covering and some drops of blood, really extrange because we didn´t see any contact between the bird and the prop so I assumed that it did hits the prop at any moment but the bird was flying so I guess it was just minor contact.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

Last summer at the STARS meet in Olean, NY there was such an incident. Duane Barron was flying a SIG something with a .60 equipped with a tuned pipe, and this thing raced by at at least 150 MPH. During a flight demonstration, Dewey flew a low pass down the runway and hit a small barn swallow and the airplane literally exploded. The engine fins were filled with bird fuzz from the breast area - that confirmed what at least 2500 people saw with their own eyes.

RE: anyone ever hit a bird??
 

I've hit two. #1 was a starling - hit him with the landing gear of a Super Hots, he died instantly and no damage to the plane.
#2 was a buzzard, we were sharing a termal, I was flying a guys brand new (1st flight) trainer, just above idle, THOUGHT I was 50' below the buzzard until the trainer wing whacked him square in the backside. Buzzard flew off after a double flip, trainer fuse destroyed, wing came down 100 yards away undamaged.