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Strategies for Pre-Emptive Mid-Air Collision Avoidance (birds alway veer right?)

I believe birds go down.

Flying reindeer just stop right in front of you and stare at your landing light.
 
+1 on the Eagles. They kind of stare you down as if to say "what are you doing up here in my space". That fact is really quite interesting to me. Different types of birds definitely react differently. The first few times I saw Eagles do that, I thought it was just an anomaly but time and time again it has been proven that they certainly have a "different attitude" than other types of birds. Kind of neat.

Keith
 
for me the danger zone is directly in front and up a bit from your vision forward. how you avoid these birds is another thing. ;)
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.02

It has been my experience that birds will almost always go down. I can also say that it is NOT always to the right...
 
In my limited experience birds haven't seen me soon enough to move, or I haven't seen them move before I was past them. I'd rather raise the nose and take the hit in the belly than lower it and take the hit in the canopy... I can probably land with a damaged skin, it might be harder to land with a broken canopy.
 
In my experience as a professional pilot, if you're gonna hit them, you're gonna hit them. Nothing you can really do about it.
 
One hit and one near miss

Hit:
I had a small Bird go through the prop and hit the top of the left tank. It happened so fast there was no time to react. The little bugger took some paint and left some blood but no dent.

Near Miss:
Buzzards are just dumb animals!
While doing a flight review a few years back and approaching an airport the CFI was doing everything in his power to distract me. I was looking down when out of my peripheral vision I notice a bird just as the CFI starts to scream. I pushed so hard on the stick that I ejected the airworthiness cert, Ops Limits, and W&B out of their pocket and bruised my shins on the bottom of the panel.

I thought for sure I had hit that bugger with the VS but there were no marks on it. The CFI still talks about that flight and how close it was.
 
bird behavio(u)r

Northern hemisphere =====> birds go right

Southern hemisphere =====> birds go left
 
I crept up on a red tailed hawk in my glider while both of us were running down a cloud street. He was on my left about 50’ ahead when he looked under his right wing and saw a 15 meter monster. He went straight up. When I landed there was a digested mouse on the wing leading edge.
 
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I crept up on a red tailed hawk in my glider while both of us were running down a cloud street. He was on my left about 50? ahead when he looked under his right wing and saw a 15 meter monster. He went straight up. When I landed there was a digested mouse on the wing leading edge.

At least he didn't have to change his pants, like a human pilot....:rolleyes:
 
Twenty years ago I was the owner of a Piper turbo Aztec (twin engine) and took a hit from two turkey buzzards. Had just spent a bunch of money at an avionics shop at KFTW and was flying the ILS at KAFW to see why wasn't capturing the GS at GS intercept altitude on the approach during VMC conditions. Flew into a gaggle of turkey buzzards rising up from below the aircraft. One of the birds hit the right wing leading edge between the fuel tanks and bent the spar. The another bird was heading for the cockpit but I was ducking and out of the corner of my eye the second bird went through the left engine's prop and bounced on the nacelle opening the oil inspection door. Have no idea what happened to the one that I thought was going to hit the windscreen. Broke off the approach and headed back to KFTW where the airplane was hangered which is when I noticed the hole in the right wing leading edge. Did a no flap landing without changing the airplane configuration from the approach. Notified the insurance company ($7,000.00 repair) which cost me $1,000.00 out of pocket (in motion deductible) amount. There was bird residue all over the spar and had always wanted to roll the Aztec Like Sky King from my childhood but after seeing the 0.025 wing skins I decided that probably was not a good idea. Airplane was down for about 6 weeks waiting for deice boot for the wing. GS problem was the coax running from the VOR/GS antenna mounted on the rudder which the avionics never checked out. A the time I was flying King Airs for a FAR 135 aeromedical company at the time living the dream of a second career now retired and having no regrets for changing careers.

ATP with 5 type ratings Be-300,BE-400, CE-500,HS-125, MU-300
CFT/CFII/MEI
RV-7A N620CF
 
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