Birds, Clouds and Fire part 1

No really, I'm fine. But in the last two weeks I've had some new experiences which have added to my knowledge and experience of flying.

The first was during the Dadaab run. I had departed from Nairobi soon after 8 local time with some passengers and arrived at Dadaab at around 10. After using the facilities at the Airport (right), I was all set to return to Nairobi with a three other passengers.

African Flycatcher

Lined up on the runway with the engine at 1700RPM I checked the magnetos one at a time and then opened up the throttle and released the brakes. We accelerated well and I was just at Vr (rotate speed) when I spotted a small flock of birds in the middle of the runway ahead. They were flycatchers as far as I could tell. At the approaching bigger metal bird they scattered, but unfortunately one decided to challenge my propellor to a duel. Maybe he thought I was a big fly.

So as I rotated and the aircraft wheels left the ground, something yellowy-red and mushy appeared on the right-hand side of the windscreen, accompanied by a soft "phlat", the sort of noise that Rowan Atkinson might make when in character as Johnnie English or Mr. Bean.

I quickly glanced at the temperature and pressure guages, and all seemed well, so I continued the take-off and climbed up to circuit height to consider what to do. Since the bird was small, the deposit on the windscreen did not affect my forward vision, and there were no adverse engine indications, I decided to continue climbing and head back to Nairobi.

Windscreen Damage from a Vulture

As is always the case, these issues require judgement on the part of the pilot. If the bird had been bigger or there had been multiple strikes, I would have continued in the circuit and landed. Had the windscreen or propellor sustained physical damage, such as shown on the aircraft on the right, I would have aborted the take-off (even with the wheels already off the ground) and landed back on the runway. It is long enough to do that.

A week later one of my colleages was flying to Dadaab and he had a birdstrike. Another flycatcher. His Cessna Caravan has a big engine air-intake at the front, and the concern is that a bird could be ingested in the engine and cause a failure (as happened with the airliner that successfully ditched in the Hudson river a couple of years ago). In this case he aborted the take-off, shut the aircraft down and had a good look in the air-intake.

So I've had my first birdstrike. Happily as with the majority of birdstrikes, it was not a serious incident (except of course for the bird). Next time I'll tell you what happened when I got up close and personal with some low cloud...