And then, there was the day in '81 when the Whidbey Tower crew looked out
the window and saw a Cessna 180 landing on Smith Island (Federal Refuge; no
entry authorized except those assigned to service the navaids located
there). When the SAR helo landed to check it out, the pilot was taxiing to
knock down enough weeds with his prop to make a takeoff. The commercial
pilot/instructor/CFII and a passenger were "just sightseeing". The last I
heard, he was running a health club for a living.

Rick

--
My real e-mail address is:




"Mike Kanze" wrote in message
...
Rick,

The hairy part was whistling across Seattle and into Whidbey NORDO

Almost as hairy as the 0-dark-30 drive to the base up highway 525 for the
brief and the pre-flight. Especially if one had been celebrating heavily
in
Seattle the night before. Even during the early 1970s when the Rock had
only a third of its current population, 525 could be a killer.

One of my hairiest - and most satisfying - experiences was a near mid-air
with some civilian who crossed our flight path in the Boardman Restricted
Area just as we started a 30 degree dive onto the target. We pulled off
the
run immediately (weren't certain but that maybe he'd brought some friends
along), climbed, turned back, and got the *******'s number. Called
Seattle
Center immediately with it.

Learned later that he'd done this crap before, and that the Administrator
subsequently lunched on the guy's gonads after jerking his license
permanently.

We always referred to the airspace below 10,000 ft. MSL as "Injun
Country,"
due to all them Navajos, Comanches, Cherokees, Arapahos, etc. drilling
about
the area.

--
Mike Kanze

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society."

-Mark Twain


"Yofuri" wrote in message
...
The hairiest I saw at Whidbey was a VA-52 A6E that took a bird hit in
the
pilot's windscreen in the Okanogan area at about 12,000. It was a
glancing
blow (no bird remains in the cockpit, species unknown). It took a chunk
out
of the center of the panel about 5" high and 1-1/2" wide. Both 'nauts
had
their visors down and gloves on like good boys. The hairy part was
whistling across Seattle and into Whidbey NORDO, because the glass
fragments
jammed the UHF thumbwheels between frequencies.

The windscreen panels were five layers of laminated glass 1-1/4" thick,
a
leatherpounder's dream.

Rick

--
My real e-mail address is:




"Mike Kanze" wrote in message
...
As to lack of smarts - it was eating another seagull that had been
smooshed
on the road earlier, it never entered its greedy little brain to
wonder
how
that meal had gotten there.

Seagulls and aircraft are an even worse mix.

Their lack of smarts are at least equaled by some humans. Case in
point:
The Civil Engineer Corps geniuses who placed the base dump at NAS
Whidbey
Island close-by the approach end of runway 31 when Ault Field was
originally
built. (The dump was decommissioned sometime in the 60s or early 70s,
IIRC.)

Seagulls and sailors have never mixed very well, less so seagulls and
naval
aircraft.

--
Mike Kanze

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society."

-Mark Twain


"Glenfiddich" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:00:37 -0500, "Jim Carriere"
wrote:

"Kristan Roberge" wrote in message
...
How often do you strike 4 pounds of bird? Other than ducks and
geese,
I
can't
think of many 4 pound birds you might run a plane into.

Um, there's lots... I've dodged plenty of hawks and buzzards- big
ones
over
5 foot wingspan too. It depends what area you fly in I guess.

Buzzards aren't God's smartest creatures either, they don't seem to
yield
to
anything no matter how big it is.
Even seag(ulls will give you right of wayif they see you in time.)


AND if they are not so gorged on roadkill that they can take off.
I lost a radiator grille and a headlamp to a severely overloaded
seagull on the road near Lossie - its rate of climb was inches/hour.
As to lack of smarts - it was eating another seagull that had been
smooshed on the road earlier, it never entered its greedy little
brain
to wonder how that meal had gotten there.

Seagulls and aircraft are an even worse mix.






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