Birdstrike - great pictures

[coxyhog]

Birdstrike on a Spanish AF Eurofighter at an airshow in June.

[Jambo]

Great photo's.

I bet that pilot shit a brick!  😗

[Phantom51red]

Bloody hell ,can't be many photos of something like this,first I've seen of a bird getting smashed by a plane.

Thanks for posting.

[Freee!!]

1 hour ago, Phantom51red said:

Bloody hell ,can't be many photos of something like this,first I've seen of a bird getting smashed by a plane.

Thanks for posting.

Looks like the cockpit glass got smashed as well.

[forcebwithu]

Video of the incident, but even in slo mo you can't see the strike as it happened.

 

[Toy Boy]

He's probably lucky it hit the cockpit window rather than getting sucked into the engine intake. That would probably have been a lot more expensive to repair. 

[forcebwithu]

Since it was an airshow he was flying at higher than normal speeds. At cruising speeds or lower the bird strike wouldn't have shattered the windshield.

[fygjam]

Importance of Testing

Aircraft manufacturers use testing methods, including firing dead chickens from
cannons, to verify the strength of windshields and other components.

It is also important, if using frozen chickens, to defrost them first.

 

 

[Pumpuynarak]

On 7/23/2025 at 10:42 AM, Toy Boy said:

He's probably lucky it hit the cockpit window rather than getting sucked into the engine intake. That would probably have been a lot more expensive to repair. 

and to survive......

[Toy Boy]

13 minutes ago, Pumpuynarak said:

and to survive......

Yes, I was wondering about that but I'm no expert. It looks to me like the Typhoon has two jet engines so I imagine (though I could well be wrong) that the aircraft can still be flown if one of them gets taken out by a bird strike? 

[Pumpuynarak]

7 minutes ago, Toy Boy said:

Yes, I was wondering about that but I'm no expert. It looks to me like the Typhoon has two jet engines so I imagine (though I could well be wrong) that the aircraft can still be flown if one of them gets taken out by a bird strike? 

I spent many times and hours flying around Portsmouth harbour in Royal Navy helicopters and never suffered a bird strike despite there being lots of seagulls thank god. The choppers we were in mostly had two gas turbine engines but some only had one.

[Toy Boy]

3 hours ago, Pumpuynarak said:

I spent many times and hours flying around Portsmouth harbour in Royal Navy helicopters and never suffered a bird strike despite there being lots of seagulls thank god. The choppers we were in mostly had two gas turbine engines but some only had one.

I spent more time than I like to remember travelling around in choppers in the North Sea, West Africa and north Borneo, and happily there was never an incident. The training you had to endure, though, especially in the northern North Sea, brought it home to you what a nightmare it could be if things went wrong. 

The only accident I ever saw was at the airport in Warri, Nigeria. Something went wrong with a smaller chopper when it was taking off and the main rotor came loose when it was already spinning at high speed but hadn't yet left the ground, fortunately. Luckily for the pilot and passengers, the rotor tilted towards the back of the bird, neatly salami slicing the tail into pieces and breaking itself up as it hit the ground in the process. Nobody was hurt, happily, but it left a big mess.  

[coxyhog]

On 7/23/2025 at 5:16 AM, forcebwithu said:

Since it was an airshow he was flying at higher than normal speeds. At cruising speeds or lower the bird strike wouldn't have shattered the windshield.

The aircraft is designed to fly very fast,mach 1.25 at sea level.