Sheesh! Glad he didn't care if you and the plane were ok!! Makes you want
to call him up the next time you hit a skunk with your car.
Jim

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
m...
Jay Honeck wrote:

Hitting a Canada Goose exerts the same force as dropping a 1000 pound
weight
10 feet.

Yikes! That would make mince-meat out of ANY GA aircraft.

I smacked a Canadian during an off field landing in a glider. $500
worth of wing tip damage and a dead goose...

I lined up to land on the lawn of a corporate office park in NJ. I saw
the flock of geese around the small pond. My intent was fly my pattern
around them, overfly them and land further up the slope. As I turned
final, the flock took off flying into the wind along my final path.
Their climbing formation intersected by glide path about 20 feet AGL. A
perfect horizon of geese. I almost closed my eyes and then THUMP.

I thought I got one on the tail but it turned out to be a tip. I rolled
to a stop and started dreading the task of having to go back and
administer the coup de grace to a flopping, wounded goose.

When I got out and started back there was only a lifeless lump. But a
car had stopped and the driver had already jumped the guardrail and was
walking towards the goose. Having watched the landing and the
collision, he kept saying something about me being in trouble for
landing here and that I should go to the guard booth.

I was in glider outlanding mode which means smiling a lot and making it
clear that there is no problem. But he just kept heading towards the
goose. He got their first and to my surprise, he scooped it up and
headed back to his car, leaving me standing in the middle of the lawn
wondering what was going on.

He threw it his trunk, got back in the car and drove off. Goose dinner
I guess.

No, I don't know what exit it was.


We've got large flocks of (what appear to be) sea gulls congregating on
our
field over the last few weeks. At this time of year we also get flocks
of
migratory birds (ducks and geese) stopping over, too. The place looks
like
a bird sanctuary.

I've come very close to hitting birds, but (knock on a burnt-orange
Cessna
dashboard) thus far have gotten away clean. Last night, while landing
in
the last glint of twilight, I saw a very large bird go zinging past me
while
on short final. There was nothing I could do but cringe...

Anyone ever hit a bird? Anyone got a good bird avoidance plan they'd
care
to share?