Anatomy of a Bird Strike...

zebedee

zebedee

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Went to one of our local seaside airshows at Rhyl on the North Wales coast at the weekend, its normally quite a quiet show but any opportunity to take some photos after the last couple of years is welcome!

Halfway through the Red Arrows display at the end of the show there was a dull thud shortly before the synchro pair were due to cross, turns out Red 6 had encountered a large seabird at 400mph which took out the Hawks canopy, thankfully he managed to return to Hawarden Airport safely... the fate of the seabird is slightly less pleasant...

Zeb
 

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Glad to see the pilot is safe.

Birds, really. Always the optimistic kind, what's next, attacking a Typhoon ? Then again, Cape Canaveral bats often have the stupid idea on nesting on Shuttle or SLS tank insulation. It often doesn't end positively for the bat. But still - they try.

We had pictures of a Rafale recently where a stupid bird committed instant suicide against the OSF optronics. It certainly screwed the optronics, but didn't lived to tell his story.
 
The Red Arrow faired better than an RCAF CT-114 Tutor after it swallowed a bird at Kamloops, B.C. on May 17, 2020. The bird got sucked into the engine immediately after lift-off. It damaged the engine which promptly quit. While the pilot tried to circle back for landing, he never had sufficient altitude, so the pilot ejected right in the corner of the ejection envelope. He survived, but his passenger - who ejected barely a second later - died before her parachute could fully open.
 

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