Big John wrote in message . ..
On last flight in a 337 a few years ago, I ran into two big buzzards
(6-8 ft wing span 20-30 lbs) just west of Houston. By adroit flying
kept one from comming through the prop and into the cockpit and
thought I would miss other but he folded his wings and dropped and I
hit him about 10 feet out on the wing causing major visable damage
from cockpit. Very carefully flew back and landed safely. Inspection
showed major internal damage to structure of wing. Just lucky I guess
that all held together.

As I have said prior, I'd rather be lucky than good ) Of course
both are better than only one.


I had the misfortune to have to do the temporary repairs on a
friend/client's T-28 at an airshow a few years ago. Struck an egrett
during a high speed pass at the show. It took me over 5 hours to
remove all the bits and pieces of the bird that we could from in front
of the main spar and from out of the small lightening hole in the spar
that it went through. Three months later when we did an annual on the
a/c, we still were finding bird parts all through the airframe. To
this day, I still don't know how some of the feathers and skin found
there way into the beacon on the top of the vertical fin.....

Craig C.