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Gordon Owen, Lake Elsinore CA sends us:

The following email is making the rounds in military circles. With word of a 14-foot wingspan bird in Alaska, I thought you'd be interested in these photos from Texas. I think the first two photos are the most revealing.

Report: T-44A 161058 suffered a bird strike to the R/H Horizon Stab during a routine training flight this afternoon. The aircrew initiated an uneventful landing with no other damage noted to the aircraft. CNATRA DET has been notified.

We've seen this before.

A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

Sea Skimmer wrote:A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

3 MONTHS???
Shows you how slow the beurocracy is.

Poor bird.

Poor plane.

Reminds me a bit of the Hydro office buildings when first built.
The building's got a solid glass type wall, and at night they used to leave all the lights on as heating, and every morning there would be littereally hundreds of dead birds littering the ground, as the building acted like a magnet in a way. They have since been forced to not have the lights on in rooms that have windows.

Wouldn't the birds have started to decompose before three months?

Bad smell.

Ted wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

3 MONTHS???
Shows you how slow the beurocracy is.

Not really. Given that the USAF has about 20,000 Mavericks, and the thing would have shipped back from the Gulf to the United States by sea, its not very bad at all. Given that it was Optical tracking I'm a bit surprised it was repaired at all.

this thread seems so... useles.

neoolong wrote:Wouldn't the birds have started to decompose before three months?

Bad smell.

Yes, and the missile was fairly well sealed up. Why do you think the depot guys where so pissed as to track down the Unit that sent it the thing to them?

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Ted wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

3 MONTHS???
Shows you how slow the beurocracy is.

Not really. Given that the USAF has about 20,000 Mavericks, and the thing would have shipped back from the Gulf to the United States by sea, its not very bad at all. Given that it was Optical tracking I'm a bit surprised it was repaired at all.

I thought you ment the depot in the Mid-East.

Ted wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Ted wrote: 3 MONTHS???
Shows you how slow the beurocracy is.

Not really. Given that the USAF has about 20,000 Mavericks, and the thing would have shipped back from the Gulf to the United States by sea, its not very bad at all. Given that it was Optical tracking I'm a bit surprised it was repaired at all.

I thought you ment the depot in the Mid-East.

The US doesn’t have a real large maintenance structure set up in the Middle East. Such facilities are to expensive and the basing rights too insecure for it to be worth the risk, and the total number of aircraft normally in theater, 250 or so many of them non combat doesn’t warrant it anyway.

Really there's not much in the way of heavy-duty maintenance for weapons or aircraft in Europe either. Everything get ship or flown back to a couple huge Air Logistics centers in the lower 48. These places could build entire new aircraft off there's stocks of spares and machinery, the US army has actually that with its UH-1 and AH-1 fleet.

Sea Skimmer wrote:A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

8 BIRDS?!! Holy shit I've heard about 2 birds with one stone but Holy Allah and his Male Lover on a Sybian, That is LUDICROUSLY PHUNNY!!!

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

Sea Skimmer wrote:A B-1A prototype was brought down by a 15-pound pelican on a low level flight over the Gulf of Mexico. I wonder if SAC took the Siberian nesting grounds of Russian storks into account when planning artic run-ins to the Soviet Union? Really, most military aircraft can take a 4-pound bird strike max; it is a real if unlikely threat.

One ANG A-10 pilot who spoke at my school talked about a litter incident his unit had in Kuwait. An A-10 with a load of optically tracking AGM-65's flew through a very dense bird flight. The nose glass of one missile shattered from a bird strike, with the bird lodged inside. Several others followed.

Upon landing the normal maintenance guys didn't want to deal with it, so they wrapped the missile in plastic and shipped it back to the depot for repair. The very angry depot personal reported pulling parts of at least eight birds out of it, three months later.

8 BIRDS?!! Holy shit I've heard about 2 birds with one stone but Holy Allah and his Male Lover on a Sybian, That is LUDICROUSLY PHUNNY!!!

We'll it was a couple full birds and parts of five or six others, the jagged broken glass combined with 200 knot airspeed meant the whole of every bird did not make it in.

that is just awful... i bet the gutz of that warhead were totally pulped... that's funny though...

frick'n birds play all holy hell with aircraft...

i still like the thing about the "chicken gun" and the brits testing the strength of the glass on their new bullet train, they fired the chicken gun and the bird went thru the glass, the seat, and put a nice large dent in the wall behind so they sent a question thing to Boeing about what could be done about the problem..

the reply was a simple: "Thaw the chicken."

Hyperion wrote:that is just awful... i bet the gutz of that warhead were totally pulped... that's funny though...

frick'n birds play all holy hell with aircraft...

i still like the thing about the "chicken gun" and the brits testing the strength of the glass on their new bullet train, they fired the chicken gun and the bird went thru the glass, the seat, and put a nice large dent in the wall behind so they sent a question thing to Boeing about what could be done about the problem..

the reply was a simple: "Thaw the chicken."

That ones always good, and I want one of those guns.