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To: Dashing Dasher

Never seen that. I remember a Reader's Digest story, many years ago, about an F-4 (I think) that took a buzzard right in the face at 450 knots. The backseater ended up having to land the airplane; the pilot lived, but he never flew again and lost an eye.

It's simple physics. A couple of pounds worth of bird slamming into something at an effective speed of several hundred miles an hour is going to do a hell of a lot of damage, and I cannot believe these people are shortsighted enough not to figure that out.

Here's another wicked set of birdstrike pics for you. American Airlines 767 meets bird, and the result was the pilot wound up with half the instrument panel almost in his lap...

http://www.elchineroconcepts.com/B767%20folder/index.htm

}:-)4


20 posted on 03/01/2006 3:50:52 PM PST by Moose4 ("I will shoulder my musket and brandish my sword/In defense of this land and the word of the Lord")
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To: Moose4
Never seen that. I remember a Reader's Digest story, many years ago, about an F-4 (I think) that took a buzzard right in the face at 450 knots. The backseater ended up having to land the airplane; the pilot lived, but he never flew again and lost an eye.

I saw a Phantom that had a similar experience at one of the UK bases in about 1983. Lakenheath or Mildenhall. I thought he struck geese in formation. One FODded the port engine, one went through the port 3/4 windscreen and FODded the pilot, and one made a dent in the port leading edge that looked like a taxi mishap with a telegraph pole.

The backseater, who was not a rated pilot, unstowed and set up the stick and landed the plane. (the stick was removable in some marks of Phantom, the backseater operated BVR intercept radar, which had a stick of its own, and various precision-guided air-to-ground voodoo in those days). The pilot survived. The mishap investigation was still underway, but they thought they were going to scrap the plane when the investigators were done with it. When the compressor disk failed. it was only partially contained and the structure was full of holes.

Supposedly the CO tore the backseater a stripe for not command ejecting, but IIRC they were over water when the mishap occurred, and the guy was worried about the nonresponsive state of the pilot.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

27 posted on 03/01/2006 6:19:49 PM PST by Criminal Number 18F
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