David vs. Goliath: Birdstrike takes down Fighterjet!

Check out this video of a birdstrike forcing two pilots to eject from their fighterjet on takeoff or after a low level pass over the airfield. Listen to the flight commander stay cool as a cucumber under maximum pucker factor conditions as he issues orders for an unsuccessful restart, and goes through procedures prior to ejection and the aircraft augering in. Very interesting clip, and free after viewing ad.

Right in the Piehole!

Although I do believe David survived his encounter with Goliath, I doubt there was much left of the bird after its encounter with the jet's turbofan.



[edit on 5-1-2006 by Icarus Rising]

Its a British HAWK trainer aircraft , in canada on take off.

theres nothing they could have done , as they were too low to come about whilst gliding , and the air speed was quite low anyway.

[edit on 5/1/06 by Harlequin]

Bah. We seriously need a couple real small pivoting guns or a timed frag grenade launcher or SOMETHING on these planes to get rid of small bird flocks if the aircraft can't dodge fast enough. Yes, its cruel, but sometimes it can be necessary.

wow thats where glider trianing comes in handy. I went and got my gliders lisence through cadets up here in canada up at mountian view for those of you who know where that is.
My crazest memory was going up with the tow plane and when we went and diped the nose down on the glider the rope caught a gust and ended up in between the pito tube of the glider and the canopy. as the rope slid right across the nose I thouht that the ring could shatter the canopy if it hit it as it went by. My instructor didn't see the rope since my head was in the way and I ended up yellig for him to duck. this all took like 5 sec and then the ring went by but hit the pito and not the canopy. When i sat up and looked at the thing it was a mess. Its normally vertical it had been bent all the way parallel to the horizion.
I had enough time by that point that i had soloed etc and my instructor asked me to still fly the plane and see how i do. I landed it fine maybe from what i remeber a lil slow but I remeber being amazed that i didn't panic. Our minds and bodies can do amazing things when asked of them.

Apparently, birdstikes are a bigger problem than the public is generally aware of. I saw a show recently on The Discovery Channel about a P-3 Orion out of Elmendorf AFB in Alaska that sucked several Canadian Geese into its port engines on takeoff and went down with the loss of all hands. The AIR showed the base had no functioning bird abatement program, contrary to regulations. An agressive program was subsequently enacted, and no further catastrophic birdstrikes have been reported there.

Oprah's private jet got struck over Santa Barbara, CA, a week or two back, as well, but managed to land safely. I think her jet took one off the windshield, not in the engine.

Oh, and last night, Myth Busters was fooling around shooting thawed and frozen chickens out of a compressed air cannon at a junked airframe. they even fired a couple pumpkins at the thing. I'm not sure exactly what they were trying to accomplish, but it was fun to watch.



[edit on 5-1-2006 by Icarus Rising]

While in the RAF, I saw a picture of the front windscreen of a Tornado that had hit a goose at high altitude over the North Sea, at over Mach 1...

The front windscreen is several inches thick, of toughened glass.

The glass was broken, huge crack across the whole screen, with a small hole that had gone all the way through.

Somehow, they managed to bring her home (the Tornado, sadly, the goose bought the farm )

[edit on 5-1-2006 by tek_604]

Originally posted by Icarus Rising
Apparently, birdstikes are a bigger problem than the public is generally aware of. I saw a show recently on The Discovery Channel about a P-3 Orion out of Elmendorf AFB in Alaska that sucked several Canadian Geese into its port engines on takeoff and went down with the loss of all hands. The AIR showed the base had no functioning bird abatement program, contrary to regulations. An agressive program was subsequently enacted, and no further catastrophic birdstrikes have been reported there.
[edit on 5-1-2006 by Icarus Rising]

Actually it was an E-3 Sentry AWACS. The only E-3 lost so far for the USAF IIRC.

Birds have brought down, or severely damaged everything from a Cessna 152, to a 747. You're talking at least several pounds of weight hitting an airplane at up to 600 mph or more depending on the plane type. That's gonna leave a mark.

[edit on 1/5/2006 by Zaphod58]

Thanks for the correction. Absolutely right, an E-3 Sentry.



One of these.

More on that accident, and others like it can be found at the link below.

www.findarticles.com...

I'm glad that was cleared up. I was pounding my head against the wall trying to figure out how the geese got past the prop without becoming pate. I helped clean up the wreckage of a C-141 that ingested seagulls on final and crashed.

I'm a firefighter (active duty) in USAF, stationed at Nellis AFB. We average a dozen or so inflight emergency responses to birdstrikes a year. For those who don't know: An inflight emergency is a response to the flightline in preperations for an aircraft landing under less than desirable conditions. I've seen some extensive damage due to birdstrikes.

Interesting side note:

One of my parents previous neighbors actually had a job where he was testing the canopies for birdstrikes. His job was shooting frozen gamehens and chickens out of a canon at canopy designs. That has got to make for some interesting dinner table talk.

"So dad, how was your day at work?"

it is a big problem, i love the flak cannon idea ..awsome would also be good in dogfights. alot of new jet's are trying to acomadate to this. alot of pasanger jets can actualy "spit" out the bird though its a bit more dead.

there is a movie out there from a aircraft carrer where a tec is sucked in to the jet and spit out alive crazyness

If I recall correctly, a little piece of scrap took down the Concorde.

The same incident happened once with the Avro Vulcan, A bird hit it through the right wing just next to the air intake.

Sick isnt it!

One of the early B-1s was lost to a pelican of all things. Hit it at the wing root and ripped out the hydraulics. At least one crew member was killed, because he was an instructor pilot without an ejection seat.