Damage from bird strike?

On Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:04:55 -0800, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

A few weeks ago one of our local Warner Springs pilots had a midair with
a hawk on the leading edge of his D2 resulting in substantial damage.
One can view on Yankee Composite's social media. Question is, how many
have suffered damage needing repair after a bird strike, in a glider?
Please share your story.

I've not hit one, but twice I've met a smallish raptor (Kestrel or
Buzzard) turning in the opposite direction in a thermal. In both cases I
found the birds relatively hard to see because of their small size. Very
shortly after I saw them, both birds suddenly looked startled look an
instantly closed its wings an plummeted, so I don't think either bird was
looking where it was going. As a result, I won't share a thermal with a
small hawk. I don't think their behaviour is surprising because I don't
remember ever seeing more than one of these small raptors in a thermal.

Gulls are quite different. The few times I've had one or two gulls join
me in a thermal and they've always joined turning the way I was. Like
vultures and kites, they know the rules for sharing thermals and
generally follow them. I have photos of large flocks of vultures and
kites in thermals and all but one or two where flying the same turn, so
that from below it was like looking up through a huge, rotating tube.
Similarly, the only time I've flown with an eagle (at Boulder, CO) it
joined us, formated above and behind our inner tip while it looked us
over.


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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org