here birdy birdy

[Propilot]

Its 10 hours into your 14 hour duty day (part 135) and after rotation you see what appears to be a small bird strike the left winglet of your king air. You dont hear or feel anything, but you can see blood streaking back....


You land, and after cleaning the winglet, there doesnt appear to be any damage. The airport crew shows you the dead bird they found near the runway and its indeed tiny, maybe the size of your fist.


You are 1000 miles away from base. You have 5 passengers on this leg.


You call dispatch and they patch you through to the on call mx guy. He says that as long as you think there isnt any damage, its your call.

The plane looks absolutely fine, no craks, the winglet is fine as far as you can tell.




Do you take off and go home, or do you insist on getting an A&P to inspect it. Can you legally determine the airwothiness of the plane after striking a bird? Do you need to demand that some sort of nondestructive testing be done before you fly it again? Does there need to be a logbook entry?


Oh...one more thing. There is an on field FSDO. its 3 pm on a tuesday. You have been to this FSDO for a checkride before, and you think you see one of the inspectors sitting inside the terminal, eating a bagel with his friend and watching you.


Discuss.

[BeechBoy]

I'd go. I've had this discussion with our own maintenance people and they say essentially the same thing: if you hit a small bird and there's no apparent damage it's not assuming an unreasonable risk to fly it home.

[Propilot]

Yea, but if you are legally wrong, you can't say "buuhhh my mechanic said..."


I don't think many people would contest the safety of it... I mean even if the winglet did break off halfway through the flight, it's arguable that the plane will still fly just fine.


....but legally...its a pilot able to determine the airworthiness of the plane in this situation.....where there could possibly be internal structural damage.....

[zmiller4]

Originally Posted by Propilot

Its 10 hours into your 14 hour duty day (part 135) and after rotation you see what appears to be a small bird strike the left winglet of your king air. You dont hear or feel anything, but you can see blood streaking back....


You land, and after cleaning the winglet, there doesnt appear to be any damage. The airport crew shows you the dead bird they found near the runway and its indeed tiny, maybe the size of your fist.


You are 1000 miles away from base. You have 5 passengers on this leg.


You call dispatch and they patch you through to the on call mx guy. He says that as long as you think there isnt any damage, its your call.

The plane looks absolutely fine, no craks, the winglet is fine as far as you can tell.




Do you take off and go home, or do you insist on getting an A&P to inspect it. Can you legally determine the airwothiness of the plane after striking a bird? Do you need to demand that some sort of nondestructive testing be done before you fly it again? Does there need to be a logbook entry?


Oh...one more thing. There is an on field FSDO. its 3 pm on a tuesday. You have been to this FSDO for a checkride before, and you think you see one of the inspectors sitting inside the terminal, eating a bagel with his friend and watching you.


Discuss.

At my airline, we're required to get it inspected before we fly again. I found a extremely minor birdstrike on a first flight walk-around, and even though it caused a 20min delay we still had contract maintainance come out and sign it off. With the possibility of a fed watching, there's no way I'd wait until returning to base. But I'm paranoid and like to cover my ass.

[BobDDuck]

That's the beauty of having a maintenance can. All you do is write "Evidence of birdstrike... right winglet" and like magic it's not your problem any more.

[jtrain609]

Call a mechanic on the field, pay them a few hundred dollars to look at it for 5 seconds and say, "Nope, not a problem" and have them sign off on it.

Done and done.

[Teller1900]

Originally Posted by BobDDuck

That's the beauty of having a maintenance can. All you do is write "Evidence of birdstrike... right winglet" and like magic it's not your problem any more.

[SIUav8er]

Originally Posted by jtrain609

Call a mechanic on the field, pay them a few hundred dollars to look at it for 5 seconds and say, "Nope, not a problem" and have them sign off on it.

Done and done.

Thats what i would do.

The only problem is that the mechanic has to work for a company that is legally allowed to work on part 135 aircraft. other than that, its the safest option...especially since the federalis in there eating their bagels might come check things out.

[viper548]

Originally Posted by BobDDuck

That's the beauty of having a maintenance can. All you do is write "Evidence of birdstrike... right winglet" and like magic it's not your problem any more.

It might cause a delay, but contract maintenance is not hard to find and covers yourself.

[flyinkibblez]

i may be wrong in this, but in my limited experience, if you are at an airport where there is a fsdo, usually the mx shop on the field is all set up for 135 ops....

its common knowledge they work with the fsdo... getting the a/c low pres light reset has to be done by someone"

[wheredhego]

I would have it checked out by the local mechanic who has talked with company MX. Then go after he says its fine and there is some sort of written documentation.
It is the PIC decision to continue if the flight can be continued safely and that will cover your butt, but it wouldn't hurt to have a quick sign off by an A&P approved by company MX.

i'm a 121 guy and had a captain tell me a similar situation and the FO, on her own free thinking told the rampers to wash the bird guts away. It happened to also be inside the pitot tube. After the aborted takeoff, the captain found out what had happened and reamed her as well as the ground personnel for not alerting him to the situation.

You never know where some of the bird went. It could be small, but just remember that small things do big damage to turbine engines.

[Mr.Maximus]

The 135 and 1,000 miles away from base answer: "Just buffing the leading edge. Ya, saw the dead bird on the runway when we were landing - glad you picked it up so someone doesn't injest it. Have a nice day".

[Gumps]

What kind of bagel?

[WalterSobchak]

"Must have been a June bug" and carry on.

[mtsu_av8er]

Nothing to see here, Mr. FAA . . . I didn't hit any bird!!

[jettison IT]

Wow, that is really scary. Did anybody get hurt.

[Minuteman]

My gut instinct is that this is naieve solution, but could you go over and ask the inspector for guidance? ... and ask him to put it in writing?

Now assume the guy's a jerk. Does that change things?

[Ramp Romeo]

Originally Posted by jettison IT

Wow, that is really scary. Did anybody get hurt.

My guess is.... at the very least.... the bird!


On a serious note, I've seen a captain shrug it off.

On arrival, I noticed what appeared to be 2 large scratches on the fuselage. When the F.O. finished his walkaround, I asked if those scratches were ok. He hadn't noticed, so I pointed it out. He rubed one to determine what it was, and lo and behold, his fingers were red. He nearly freaked out and asked me to call MX while he got the captain.
There was far too much radio chatter for me to get through to ops, when the captain comes by, takes a gander, rubs off one streak with a napkin, looks at the fan blades, and says "Looks good to me, don't bother with 399." Who am I but a simple ramp monkey?, so I just leave it as is.

That being said, there had to be at least 2 birds, as both blood streaks, about 3 feet apart both headed toward the intake port. Poor fellas. They just have a passion for flying like we all do here.

[ljg]

Make a thorough inspection for damage and press on.

[cptnmarcus]

I definitely would not have came back around to land when I was flying 135.. I would have just kept going... Especially if there was no problem with wing or control surfaces. Now in 121, it might have been a different story. There lies the difference in 121 vs 135