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  #30  
Old January 20th 04, 04:11 AM
WaltBJ
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Here's some bird and ice impacts for you.
One of my cadet classmates flying a Piper PA18 in primary at Hondo
Texas hit a hawk - it came right through the windshield, alive and
clawing. He wrung its neck and threw it into the rear. He still has a
scar on his cheek.
When I was at Homestead AFB 76-80 we had three buzzard strikes at Avon
Park Range. Two hit the airframe and one hit the left quarter panel of
the windshield. All strikes were when the F4s were doing 500K on low
level weapons deliveries. The airframe strikes penetrated the fuselage
skin around the intakes but no serious damage (other than a hole) was
done. The windshield strike filled the cockpit with buzzard pieces and
guts and disabled the front seater as most of the buzzard hit his
shoulder. The rear seater was a pilot and landed the F4 at Avon park
making an arrested engagement so the front seater could get immediate
medical attention. He was dazed and his shoulder was severely bruised
and he was half-nauseated from the buzzard guts but he recoverd
quickly. A maintenance crew came up and repaired the F4 and another
crew flew it back home.
I was with Air Florida when one of our DC9s lunched an engine. 'Blue
ice' from a leaking forward lavatory drain finally broke loose and the
airflow carried it up over the wing and right into the engine intake.
JT8Ds don't like large lumps of ice, regardless of color. BTW had
anyone else noted the tabloids don;t carry stories about 'blue ice'
from alien space any more?
Walt BJ