Bird strikes are commonly encountered accidents that occur in aviation, which has led to the creation of the Bird and Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard Program (BASH). Jeff introduced to us some history and statistical background regarding bird strikes in aviation.
“Hey, I’m Jeff and today we’re going to talk about an issue that’s real common between civil
and military aviation, which is the hazard of birds. Bird strikes are about as old as aviation (itself). Generally speaking, Dave and I both have military backgrounds and most military
aircraft operations, there’s a higher problem with damaging bird strikes, because a lot of what we do is in the low-level environment.
“As you know, most bird strikes can occur in almost any phase of flight. And they are most likely to occur at the takeoff and initial climb out approach and landings, due to the greater number of birds at low altitudes. But don’t become complacent with that. The highest bird strike that I’ve heard of, believe it or not, is 21,000 feet.
“It was a KC-135 during air refueling with a B1 that hit multiple ducks. I would think
at 21,000 feet ducks might be hypoxic. I know I would. But what happened was apparently in the review of this. It happened over the desert, and apparently migrating birds like to climb to a higher altitude sometimes to avoid the warmer air near the ground. So they’ll initiate a step climb, kind of like we do in airplanes, to get away from the warmer, drier altitudes. So 21,000 feet, believe it or not, is the highest that I’ve heard of recorded. And as you all know, birds mostly fly during the day. So most of the strikes occur during daylight hours but interestingly 25% occur at night, and most of them occur, at least in North America In the late summer through the fall and through the late winter and early spring, because that’s when the Migration Period occurs. Last year, the Air Force had over 4000 bird strikes
almost $20 million with the damage.
“The FAA in 2018 recorded 16,000 bird strikes, but an interesting statistics to go with that is that 80% of all bird strikes go on unreported. Now I have a background in T-38. One of the interesting things that a lot of people who flew T-38 or fly T-38 probably don’t know is the airplane was originally designed without a bird resistant windscreen. Not talking about canopy, talking about wind screens here. The thought was that the birds would get caught in the slipstream and then pass right over top of the fuselage.
“Well, obviously, that didn’t come to pass, we’ve lost a few T-38 to bird strikes over the
years and the Air Force fixed that problem. So the Air Force usually steps up and when they see a problem they try to fix it.”
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