Bird Strike

[crazydoc]

Would like to know ;What happens if my rotor gets struck by
A. Dove (small bird).
B. guinne fowl (tarentaal) .
C. Vulture (u go down,i heard)?.

[Alkemac]

D: when it's sitting in a tree ?

[Baitbird]

I do think the stage of flight is relevant as well.

A dove / small bird I would imagine can't do much damage - worth however doing a decent inspection as soon as possible.

The meatier birds (heavier birds) can however provide more stress.
I should think that the rotor would be able to cut through the bird, but I am sure that there will be serious stresses transferred to the rotor-head etc. I would be very hesitant to continue the flight if at all possible to land.

The good thing is - You should only encounter guine-fowl at very low level or during take-off and landing, and a cool head should get you to a full stop without further damage.
Vultures etc however are birds that I have encountered regularly. - I try and stay clear / bank or climb over them. - NEVER TRY AND PASS BELOW them.

I have almost flown into a pelican once. - It' didn't see me from head on - and I didn't see it until it was VERY CLOSE. Luckily both of us banked to our right (respectively).
I was sure it passed below my rotor close to the prop- without touching anything.
Had a serious case of "rutteltits in my hands and feet" for a while afterwards.

BB

[John.com]

Would like to know ;What happens if my rotor gets struck by
A. Dove (small bird).
B. guinne fowl (tarentaal) .
C. Vulture (u go down,i heard)?.

Damage to the propeller (say one blade splinters/chips or a piece breaks off) will result in vibration.

The extent of the damage will directly influence the amplitude/magnitude of the vibration from the damaged rotating propeller.

If the vibration is slight, you may well continue flying the aircraft (at reduced power) and land asap and inspect the damage.

If the vibration is significant, the worst possible scenario is that it removes your engine off its mountings!!! Quoting Pieter de Necker from PProp, "the centrifugal force PER propeller blade rotating at full RPM is around 2.5 TONS!!!" Now, when your propeller has all blades intact and attached to the hub, these forces are 'balanced out', so to speak. Lose one and you have a 2.5 TON force rotating at a very high RPM, which will remove your engine. There are cases where this has happened in fixed wing aircraft!

So, first prize is to hit those mags VERY fast and to try and reduce the vibration before the engine removes itself from the airframe! Then look around and inspect the damage. With the mags OFF turn the engine over slowly to move the blades around in order to properly inspect all blades for possible damage.

However, if you had to lose your engine, and assuming the engine disconnected (all cables, etc.) completely and headed for mother earth, I summise that the attitude of your undercarriage would change somewhat (more nose-down), but the trike would still be flyable in the glide.

Understand that in flying a trike, a vulture would probably almost knock you out cold on its way through to the propeller strike!! It could also cause some serious damage to the compression strut (not flight critical) or the trapeze bar uprights (very flight critical, as when bent under compression, which they are, they could very well simply fold in two . . . . then, complete structural failure of the wing!)

So, in short, steer clear of them birds!!! They are quite easy to see if you apply good scanning technique!

I hope that this helps!

[nicow]

Would like to know ;What happens if my rotor gets struck by
A. Dove (small bird).
B. guinne fowl (tarentaal) .
C. Vulture (u go down,i heard)?.

Normally the bird don't survive the prop/rotor strike...

Some of the gyros here by us had bird strikes on their rotors,but with no damage to the rotors.