First bird strike

[Plane Nuts]

Went to make a short hop from Prince Julianna to St. John in my Aerostar tonight and a bird took out my right engine about one minute after takeoff.
I'll tell ya, my heart jumped out of my chest, and I actually got very nervous turning the aircraft around, declaring an emergency, getting the
transponder set to 7700 and then landing. It didn't help that I decided to fly even though the weather was inclement, so finding the runway in 2 mile
visibility while keeping control of my now one engine aircraft was tough.

Moments after takeoff, the water here is beautiful!


Right engine is out, prop feathered and I'm on the downwind leg to runway 9.


Back on the ground and counting my blessings.

[Becks]

Nice screen shots. Good job on making it back in one piece. I just had a birdstrike as well in a 737 going from Dulles to Bahamas. I figured FS
wouldnt allow me to fly there. I have to work tomorrow lol.

[jboweruk]

Bird strikes are scary the first time. I had one a while back, but the Ol' Beech 1900 handled herself exceptionally and got me back safely. I
think as long as you do everything right they are not as scary as they're made out to be. as long as you have speed and remember that
your climb rate is going to be less than half what it was before.

[Jetflyer]

It's scary in a 757...in a B1900, nah...

[Dutch64]

Don't agree, I would crash in a b1900 on bird strike, in a jet though, i would just have another cup of coffee

[Jetflyer]

The 757 has a lot of power, but it's the controllability that is very difficult. Having a high thrust/weight ratio is required for engine out
situations in a twin but it is much harder to control than a B1900D because the assymetric feeling due to the engines power makes it
serisously hard to control, not to mention it is many times bigger and far less responsive and if you **** up you die. I only just made the
runway when I had the engine failure on the B757 I am pretty sure however that I could walk through an engine failure on a b1900 no
problem. The 757 was completely unable to turn left on final approach with the left engine producing approach thrust and that includes
with full left rudder trim. Actually getting the 757 on the runway is a challenge i such a situation but no way is it hard to get on the erunway
in the B1900 with a failed engine.

The problem with engine mfailures is not the lack of thrust, the plane can easily fly like that (unless all engines fail) but the problem is controllability because the engines are not centered in the middle axis of the plane. The B1900 D's proeller produce a tork which rolls it to the left so a left engine failure on that would be more difficult than one a 757 because of the extra tork effect. But a right engine failure on a B1900 would be easier to control than on the 757 because the tork of the working engne counter acts the assymetric feeling slightly. Does this make sense?



Post Edited ( 11-15-05 12:27 )

[Dutch64]

For me the 1900 would be the challenge, just don't like props with troubles The 320/330/340/777 i can fly on one engine out with no
problem, never tried the 757 though.

[SaVas]

In any aircraft a birdstrike can be a white knuckler

One thing I like about them is they are rare and unexpected so you really have to be attentive during take offs

[Shady]

I had only one bird-strike so far and I was flying Cessna Skyline. I was somewhere in the middle of a short trip and left the cockpit for
a while. After I was back I noticed that I'm slowing down, the engine output is dropping and I don't know what's happening. I turned the
engine off, restarted it again, it was nice for couple of seconds and again it started to drop. Well, I've overseen the co-pilot's message of failure
and unsure of my situation I declared emergency and let the bird go gently down. Landed safely in the middle of nowhere... wondering where
the sirenes came from in this crop field ;-)
Reading the post-flight report I learned that it was a bird that was tired with it's life...

Greets!

[jboweruk]

HMM, it was my left engine that died interestingly. I still found that lil ol' lady quite decent to handle in that situation. Don't know that I'd
want to try it in a bigger jet. I had gunfire damage later on zero vis approach in mountains in a 767 and that was far far harder, though it
didn't help that the autopilot sent it out of control before I even got a chance to take over..... I got killed BTW.

[United844]

Luckly for me ive only had a flame out on eng 2 but thats just as bad as a bird srike landed safely

[SaVas]

What isnt easy is flying in the MAAM RD46 with almost full pax and cargo brimming to your MTOW, and having a bird strike or engine
flame out over water

low and slow becomes low and SPLASH



Post Edited ( 11-15-05 20:33 )

[Chris]

i haven't had a bird strick yet...why haven't I had one? What's goin on, dont the birds like my windscreen or something?



Bring it on........

[Plane Nuts]

The points I earned from my incident helped me get promoted to C4 tonight! I was almost 10 hours short of the C4 requirement, but my points were well
past the mark!

[jboweruk]

I had that last night, flew into Baghdad in the ol' C130, got it wrong (too high too late) and had to come around, by now I was in range and
one engine got shot out (no problem there it was one of the 2 spare ones) plus 2 fuel tanks, electrical system and vacuum system all
gone. Landed safely got 2500 odd points and promoted to C2 (at last). I had been screwing up and getting further and further away from it.