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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by trapper189:
I hit a turkey once while riding south on WI-35. I was doing 65, saw the turkey in the gravel next to the shoulder and slowed down to 50. I covered the brakes with my hand and foot figuring it would make it's move before I got there. Nope. 10 feet away it jumped up, then out, hitting the right side of my front faring, busting the mirror off, and then into my shoulder. The bird died on impact. Hindsight being what it is, I should have slowed down more and not played chicken with the turkey.

I'll see your turkey and raise you a pelican.

I hit it at 200 ft. above the water, offshore abeam St. Augustine.

Bird shit and feathers all over the airplane.

And what were you doing at 200 ft along the beach, sightseeing? Good thing you didn't slow down and get rear ended by a Mooney.

Luckily, just blood and feathers for me. I stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some cleaning supplies, told the cashier what had happened, and she said dead seriously, "Ya know, you can keep'm?" I still laugh at the image of riding back to Chicago with a dead turkey strapped across the front of my motorcycle.

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Originally posted by trapper189:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by trapper189:
I hit a turkey once while riding south on WI-35. I was doing 65, saw the turkey in the gravel next to the shoulder and slowed down to 50. I covered the brakes with my hand and foot figuring it would make it's move before I got there. Nope. 10 feet away it jumped up, then out, hitting the right side of my front faring, busting the mirror off, and then into my shoulder. The bird died on impact. Hindsight being what it is, I should have slowed down more and not played chicken with the turkey.

I'll see your turkey and raise you a pelican.

I hit it at 200 ft. above the water, offshore abeam St. Augustine.

Bird shit and feathers all over the airplane.

And what were you doing at 200 ft along the beach, sightseeing? Good thing you didn't slow down and get rear ended by a Mooney.

Luckily, just blood and feathers for me. I stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some cleaning supplies, told the cashier what had happened, and she said dead seriously, "Ya know, you can keep'm?" I still laugh at the image of riding back to Chicago with a dead turkey strapped across the front of my motorcycle.

I bet I've got the only airplane with trailing edge bird strikes.

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Originally posted by trapper189:
And what were you doing at 200 ft along the beach, sightseeing?

Not actually "along the beach," about 1/2 mile off shore.

This was an every Friday morning flight for me. The shoreline survey, not the pelican collision.

U.S. Department of Agriculture posted contracts for weekly shoreline surveys. A marine biologist had the contract for the 28th parallel (Sebastian Inlet) to the 31st (somewhere in Georgia). I was his pilot. We would launch out of the Apopka airport at dark-thirty every Friday morning, timing it to arrive Sebastian inlet at sunrise.

Then a fast flight (well, as fast as you can go in a C-182) at 200 ft above the water, just off shore, northbound past the Georgia state line.

This was in the 1990s. The Department of Agriculture had mandated TEDs (Turtle Exclusion Devices) on the nets in the shrimp fleet and the surveys were looking for dead sea turtles that might have washed up on the beach.

On the morning in question, as I was abeam St. Augustine, a flock of pelicans took flight at my eleven o'clock. I turned right, away from them and missed the flock, but one pelican decided to leave the herd and cut across the front of the airplane I was flying. BAM! Bird shit and feathers all over the place.

I wanted to get on the ground RIGHT NOW. Did not take time to change frequency nor make a call to the tower, just looked, decided that I was not cutting off any traffic, landed straight in on Runway 31 at St Augustine. After we were safely on the ground, spoke to tower, 'splained what had happened. Tower controller directed me to a maintenance facility where it was determined that there was no damage from the prop / pelican conflict, they removed the shattered nose wheel fairing, and we aborted the survey mission and went back home.

A month or two later, we took a PBS narrator and cameraman with us on the flight. They did a documentary on sea turtles being drowned when they were caught in shrimp nets. It aired under the title "Net Loss." You can see my right hand on camera, when I reach over to the radio to change frequency. My fifteen minutes of fame.

I'll slow down for turkeys though. When I was still working in car dealerships we had a Pontiac G8 towed in. He struck a turkey on I-96 outside of Williamston Michigan. Took out the top of the windshield and crumpled the leading edge of the roof directly above the driver back about six inches.

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No, you would have rammed a car from behind because you didn't give proper clearance for a road hazard. No matter how much you are trying to rationalize your aggressive and reckless driving.

I am not going to get into the rights or wrongs of the video here.

My observations of drivers in this area over the last several years is that damned few of them have any idea what laws of physics mean.

I try to stay in the right lane and let the morons who scream past at upwards of 75mph with less than one car length between their car and the one in front.

I have had people tail gate me at 55-60 mph, following so closely that I could not see their headlights!

WTF ever happened to driver's education that taught about safe following distances?

Something about 1 car length + an additional car length for each 10mph of vehicle speed!

Driver's education classes taught that when I was in high school, back in 1951-52!

Recently, I have seen assholes come screaming past in the right lane, swerve back into the left lane with BARELY enough room for their car between 2 vehicles already there!

Don't GAS about why some driver slows, or stops, on the road. Engine stop, heart attack, road hazard?

None of which make a difference. You hit someone in the rear, it is your fault.

I stopped for a bird recently. It bounced off my helmet. Knocked the shit outta me.

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Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
I bet I've got the only airplane with trailing edge bird strikes.

How...With the...Wha...Great, now my head hurts!

- Bret

I’m glad to hear a conversation about following too closely. I try to leave 3 seconds between the car I’m following. It’s nearly impossible the way people drive these days.

^^^

The 2 or 3 second rule is good for normal reaction times of a person of average response/action and paying attention as well as "knowing/understanding the vehicle and their own limitations and abilities.

But toss in distractions, inattentiveness, fatigue and such factors, and the 2 or 3 seconds may not be enough to react appropriately.

All one need do is look at the number of crashes, and the majority are outside of the safe operating envelope the majority of the time, and are simply playing the odds and getting away with it.

And, on a well traveled roadway, trying to leave that safety margin will invariably end up with some twit or three stuffing themselves in that space, until you look as if your driving in reverse.

I had a full grown turkey vulture come THROUGH the windshield of a corolla at about 70 mph, jumped out of the high grass on the roadside.

It was probably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, those things are covered by and filled with parasites. Oh yeah, and FULL of rotten roadkill. I drove home after washing off in a ditch, with my head hanging out of the window.
Had the car towed to a junkyard the next day. I didn't feel clean for a month. I still have flashbacks when I see a flock tearing up something on the roadside.

Some jackasses with Maryland plates on their motorhome killed 3 sandhill cranes (both parents and baby- and you have not seen cute until you've seen a baby sandhill crane) on the 25 mph curve by my house a few weeks ago. probably doing 45, didn't even tap the brakes, lady driving was looking at her phone as she passed me, right before the explosion of feathers. I initially turned around but then thought about it, what was I going to do, beat her up? shoot her? Idiots surround us.

I saw a turkey get obliterated into a cloud of feathers this weekend by an RV. Nothing he could have done. Thing jumped right out of the brush.

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I had a full grown turkey vulture come THROUGH the windshield of a corolla at about 70 mph,

Vividly remember seeing this happen to a truck (as in tractor-trailer truck) on I-20 in rural MS once. Saw several of them take off ahead of us to fly across the road, one didn't get enough height or distance. I had already slammed on the brakes when he hit it. Feathers everywhere, he was swerving all around, luckily kept it on the road. As I eased by and he was slowing down to a stop he was reaching up to push the destroyed windshield further out onto the hood.

What a mess, I am sure.

I have video of a Trumpeter Swan stepping out in front of my car. I was able to drive around it due to light traffic.