On approach to the Ft. Myers airfield, a bird strikes the windshield with large shards crashing into the cockpit onto the pilot. He bleeds and makes an emergency landing.
More info at YouTube.
Try this: look for the airfield to appear as dot on the horizon so far in the distance it looks like miles and see how fast this plane is traveling without a windshield and how calmly the pilot handles his aircraft. He's all, "I ain't got time to bleed."
Action @6:45
12 comments:
Looks like about 150kts at 1000 feet. His first reaction is to add altitude and does a great job not losing airspeed. Looking at his moving map; he was moments to turning on to final. He never loses stability. He definitely wanted it on the ground, as he crosses the threshold, his vertical goes from about 400fps to 600fps, but he flares it properly to 200fps. Nice job.
One of the Airport movies, as I recall.
Oops, make that feet per minute (fpm), not feet per second (fps); otherwise ouch.
Well that de-escalated quickly.
He did what he had to do and did it well. I once had to plant a predecessor to the Saratoga, a Lance, in a freshly plowed brussels sprouts field somewhere near Half Moon Bay. Walked away from it so it was a good one, in each of our cases.
My old man man worked as a mechanic in O&R[overhaul and repair] for Pratt&Whitney. He said they often pulled mangled birds out of the engines when they tore them down. I say kill all seagulls.
Sounds like it could have been tense, XRay. You probably plowed 2 or 3 furrows of your own out there.
Dad Bones it would have been good, but I had along a fellow mech in the right seat who felt the slight rise in the field wasn't the middle of it but the 100 ft. cliff edge drop to the ocean on the other end. He slammed the brakes, dual remember, the nose went down, the prop caught, etc. He panicked. We had plenty of room I had it planned.
It was a test flight from my shop after a CND... could not duplicate. The squawker was one of my instructors... Bob Barrett? He was flying bank checks for hours in 43Q and was losing power on occasion, not for long, just a second or so. The shop chief put Eldon on the job. Eldon was my mentor, in a way. Former Marine, aviation, melted brass scrap on Guadcanal to make new bearings for P&W 1830's. Cool right. Well, old Eldon didn't look in the right places on this occasion.
I had a route, out of San Carlos, through the pass to the ocean. Wide roadway on the way there, risky for emergency landing but better than the hills to the side.
Made it to the water. Keep in mind I had done this multiple times. I generally cruised at 3000 ft. - 1500 hundred feet from shore, which was the closest one could get.
Then the mags went shit. I had always chosen this route cause of the fields next to the ocean, it just felt logical... more flat spots. I looked to my left and saw it immediately. After that it was all training, training from excellent instructors. More to story but that's boring enough.
Not boring at all to this old grease monkey, XRay, but my test drives were always in old cars/pickups on country roads, and never a risk of going over a cliff though I've had moments of frustration with a vehicle that seemed unfixable and would liked to have sent it over a cliff. Thanks for the story.
I wanted to get a pilot's license in the 60's and logged 6 hrs at the base flying club. But the club mgr was an asshole and chewed me out because the instructor was often late, and the instructor was worse and had an anger problem while trying to teach me. I decided to do my flying a little closer to the ground at the local bars.
What’s funny that these green energy freaks like AOC want to switch to wind farms which kill hundreds of birds including endangered ones.
Now that’s funny shot right there.
I'd slow down with the windshield out. One of the rules for flying my plane with the door off was reduce the speed lest you blow out the rear windows.
Is the bird ok?
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