Re: RAPTOR/PLANE COLLISION

["Tyrberg Tommy" <tommy.tyrberg@aerotechtelub.se>]

James R. Cunningham wrote:
>It certainly looks feasible to me. Any pilot would take it seriously. I notice 
>that the tailplane was collapsed back to the front spar just as you'd expect 
>it to be. I'd venture to guess that most of the nay-sayers aren't pilots and 
>aren't familiar with aircraft structure. Note that the tail number is visible, 
>so the accident report can be used to verify the incident. <

I agree. However being an ornithologist in the aerospace business I have on 
occasion been called upon to identify the remains of birds after birdstrikes 
(not a very appetizing job) and it is clear that this must have been rather a 
low-speed strike. Usually the remains are much more fragmented. Low-speed 
birdstrikes are incidentally not very common, at least here in Sweden, since 
the birds very sensibly avoid them.
The amount of damage that a fair-sized bird like a _Buteo_ can do to even a 
strongly built fighter aircraft is quite awesome. I remember a case where a 
_Buteo_ hit a Viggen fighter between the airframe and an engine air intake. It 
went straight throught the wall of the intake (two well-spaced dural panels). 
Part of the remains ended up in the engine but the rest crossed the air intake, 
went through one more panel and finally lodged against a stringer (which was 
bent in the process). I tried to deform the serrated edges of the holes in the 
panels by hand, but they were too strong. Admittedly this happened at ca 600 
mph, but I agree that hitting a _Quetzalcoatlus_  (or _Argentavis_  for that 
matter) would quite likely destroy a medium-sized aircraft. 

Tommy Tyrberg