I was thinking today of just how many occasions I have come across the mix of animals and aircraft. So I thought I would start a lighter thread on peoples experiences of when aircraft and animals mix, which usually ends badly for the animal. Anecdotes don't necessarily need to be first hand, I will start off with some of my own experiences mainly in the Top End of Australia.
I have recovered an F/A-18 with the remains of a wallaby on the nose strut, its intestinal contents on the centre line tank and large chunks of flesh on the main LH strut. Thankfully nothing down the intake but bloody smears just under it. I have also recovered a Hornet that panned in after a bird strike. It injested a sizeable bird, probably a hawk, in the left engine. Nothing left of the bird but blood stains and a bad singed feathers type of smell. Just recently an aircraft had a rabbit strike on landing although there wasn't much evidence left(of the rabbit).
I have also seen a petrified frog pulled from the ECS ducting of a hornet, the cause of long running ECS problem on that jet and many hours fault finding. Also a very dead snake found inside a U/S FLIR pod and a very live, angry and reluctant to move snake(python) in an F/A-18 main wheel well. Gave the guy doing the BF quite a fright to find himself sharing the cramped wheel well with said serpent. One of the funniest I have seen is the feet of a bird protruding from the front of a FLIR pod. It had punched a neat hole clean through the metal skin of the pod and just had its feet sticking out the front. One thing the ADF can be thankfull for is that cane toads can't climb. The damn things are in plague proportions across Northern Oz and would have been a major problem if they could have climbed into A/C.
Well thats about all I can think of at the moment, so its over to you.
Hooroo
I have recovered an F/A-18 with the remains of a wallaby on the nose strut, its intestinal contents on the centre line tank and large chunks of flesh on the main LH strut. Thankfully nothing down the intake but bloody smears just under it. I have also recovered a Hornet that panned in after a bird strike. It injested a sizeable bird, probably a hawk, in the left engine. Nothing left of the bird but blood stains and a bad singed feathers type of smell. Just recently an aircraft had a rabbit strike on landing although there wasn't much evidence left(of the rabbit).
I have also seen a petrified frog pulled from the ECS ducting of a hornet, the cause of long running ECS problem on that jet and many hours fault finding. Also a very dead snake found inside a U/S FLIR pod and a very live, angry and reluctant to move snake(python) in an F/A-18 main wheel well. Gave the guy doing the BF quite a fright to find himself sharing the cramped wheel well with said serpent. One of the funniest I have seen is the feet of a bird protruding from the front of a FLIR pod. It had punched a neat hole clean through the metal skin of the pod and just had its feet sticking out the front. One thing the ADF can be thankfull for is that cane toads can't climb. The damn things are in plague proportions across Northern Oz and would have been a major problem if they could have climbed into A/C.
Well thats about all I can think of at the moment, so its over to you.
Hooroo
