Not a Bird Strike

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Metal Master
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:52 am

Not a Bird Strike

Post by Metal Master »

It was not a bird strike but it was a driller strike. In the eighties I was working in Alaska as a contracted mechanic on a Hughes 500D doing gold and silver surveys. The drillers worked 12 hours on and 12 hours off in two-man teams. We flew them in and out at shift change plus drill rig moves and survey geologists positioning flights. At shift change the Drill foreman was climbing into the right seat and hanging onto the strap on the door post when he realized that he had forgotten to give the nylon strapping tape in his coveralls to the night shift drill team. The tape was used to tape the core sample boxes closed where they were stored before the geologists worked on them. As he was climbing up on the skid he reached into his pocket and threw the tape out from under the rotor path. The rotors are at negative pitch at ground idle. The tape flew in an arc up through the rotor path and hit one of the 5 rotor blades about a foot and a half from the tip. The rotor track went out by nearly a foot. When I inspected the blade the trailing edge was rippled about a ½ inch in the vicinity of the strike and rippled all the way to the root. The drill sight was about 18 miles from base camp in the middle of nowhere. The pilot I was working with had about 6,000 hours in type having done three tours in Viet-Nam as an OH6 scout pilot. They were out of radio range. with out shutting down the ship the pilot had the drillers shut down the drill site and all four drillers climbed into the ship and flew back to base camp. The pilot had several expletives as he entered the kitchen tent where I was eating dinner. We were grounded in camp for a couple of weeks while I did the strap pack, rotor strike and 100 hour inspections. The weather turned extremely windy and it took 4 days of attempts to get a new rotor delivered as the pilots could not land on our mountain top airstrip. And that was after they got it delivered from the lower 48. We had to call in a Jet ranger from Fairbanks to pick up the geologists. When I went to make the call into Soloy Heli Ops to get a new blade, I found the drillers had jerked the short-wave radio of off the table in the office tent and the main PC board in the radio was broken in half. Everyone else in camp decided to party. I had to get to work, but that’s another story.
Jim
A&P, IA, New owner C170A N1208D, Have rebuilt some 50 aircraft. So many airplanes, So little time!
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ghostflyer
Posts: 1390
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:06 am

Re: Not a Bird Strike

Post by ghostflyer »

When I was in the military we used bell 206b-1 . Yes a long time ago. We had a job of flying around to different farms and negotiating with farmers for damage to their property due another country troops [usa marines] not realising the boundary Of the farms from the military exercise area. The bell 206 was parked each night on this dairy farm in a Empty paddock near the house.
Next morning on a preflight the tail rotor was found bent . Rang the commanding officer explained that we had a bent tail rotor . Can we have a new one . Another helicopter and crew flew out and replaced the tail rotor . Next morning on the preflight , the tail rotor was bent again. The Commanding officer went crazy. Another crew flew out again and another new one fitted. He was screaming at me what the hell you cowboys are up to . The farmer told us no cattle were kept in that paddock so it was suspect that some was walking in from the main road. So next morning [4.00 am] I was out of bed [hotel was 8 miles away] ,taxi used to the farm and guess what , the paddock was full of cattle .
I fronted the farmer and asked what the hells happening. He replied that it was a holding paddock before milking. No cattle are held there. It normally empty . They were using the tail rotor area as a scratching post.
Metal Master
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:52 am

Re: Not a Bird Strike

Post by Metal Master »

I was flying my Glasflugal kestrel 17 glider in a group soaring Safari having launched in the morning from Cedarville Calif our second landing sight the first having been Gerlach Nevada on the Black Rock Desert. About 1/2 the group could not find lift and ended up landing back a Cedarville. A few made it to Susanville our final destination a few others landed at other airports. I almost made it to Susanville however ended up landing in a two track road landing across one of four cow pastures. There was a ranch house that turned out was rented out to a woman who got me in touch with the rancher. He allowed as how it was no problem for me to be in his pasture as long as I had not cut any power lines during landing. We had a support driver with a universal trailer being pulled by my jeep to recover gliders that had landed out. As he was busy recovering other gliders from all over the map. I did not get picked up until late that evening and without the trailer. I took my jeep back to Airsailing Glider port near Sparks Nevada and picked up my own glider trailer. Went back to my glider the next morning. When I got there I found the glider just as I had left it other than two odd things. The glider looked as though a whole class of second graders had finger painted my glider with mud. And my total energy probe was bent. Not a cow in sight. I could see no path into the pasture. I assume the cows got into that pasture and thought the rancher had provided them with a Giant salt lick. I have this picture in my mind of a heard of cows all lined up around my glider all jostling one another to get a chance at this giant surprise. There was not a single spot on the surface of the glider that was not touched by this mud painting. On a side note my glide computer was manufactured by Mike Borgelt of Toowoomba Queensland.
A&P, IA, New owner C170A N1208D, Have rebuilt some 50 aircraft. So many airplanes, So little time!
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DaveF
Posts: 1516
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2007 1:44 am

Re: Not a Bird Strike

Post by DaveF »

ghostflyer wrote:The farmer told us no cattle were kept in that paddock ... and guess what , the paddock was full of cattle ... He replied that it was a holding paddock before milking. No cattle are held there.
"I thought you said your dog does not bite??"
"That is not my dog!"
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pdb
Posts: 466
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 3:39 am

Re: Not a Bird Strike

Post by pdb »

Metal Master wrote:I was flying my Glasflugal kestrel 17 glider in a group soaring Safari having launched in the morning from Cedarville Calif our second landing sight the first having been Gerlach Nevada on the Black Rock Desert. About 1/2 the group could not find lift and ended up landing back a Cedarville. A
By any chance, was Vern Frye leading that safari out of Airsailing? He used to take very inexperienced pilots on long cross countries up the Black Rock desert to Winnemucca, or towards Susanville, or down towards Yerington or Hawthorne depending on the weather.

On my first cross country, we departed Airsailing, climbed to about 12,000 feet and then turn north on course towards Gerlach straight across Pyramid lake. Crossing the lake in the stable air above, whistling slightly like a jet. I remember watching the altimeter unwind steadily as we proceeded on course. I kept thinking how dumb it was going to look when a new glider pilot flying in the desert drowned in the lake. Magically, we made it past Gerlach and all the way to Winnemucca.
Pete Brown
Anchorage, Alaska
N4563C 1953 170B
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2366/2527 ... 4e43_b.jpg
Metal Master
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:52 am

Re: Not a Bird Strike

Post by Metal Master »

pdb wrote:
Metal Master wrote:I was flying my Glasflugal kestrel 17 glider in a group soaring Safari having launched in the morning from Cedarville Calif our second landing sight the first having been Gerlach Nevada on the Black Rock Desert. About 1/2 the group could not find lift and ended up landing back a Cedarville. A
By any chance, was Vern Frye leading that safari out of Airsailing? He used to take very inexperienced pilots on long cross countries up the Black Rock desert to Winnemucca, or towards Susanville, or down towards Yerington or Hawthorne depending on the weather.

On my first cross country, we departed Airsailing, climbed to about 12,000 feet and then turn north on course towards Gerlach straight across Pyramid lake. Crossing the lake in the stable air above, whistling slightly like a jet. I remember watching the altimeter unwind steadily as we proceeded on course. I kept thinking how dumb it was going to look when a new glider pilot flying in the desert drowned in the lake. Magically, we made it past Gerlach and all the way to Winnemucca.
Yes it was Vern Frye. I used my drag chute for landing to the west one time at Air Sailing and released it about 300 ft. AGL on final. The chute blew about a mile down wind and I had no idea where it was. Vern flew me all over the desert in the scout looking for it to no avail. I finally found it about 600 ft. west of Winnemucca Ranch Road. I can't remember if Vern was flying the Scout or a glider on that Safari. The last time I saw Vern was just after arriving in Susanville Via jeep on the previous mentioned Soaring Safari. Some of the best Soaring experiences I ever had were flown out of Airsailing and Bakersfield California in the Owens Valley. I jetted all over that place.
Jim
A&P, IA, New owner C170A N1208D, Have rebuilt some 50 aircraft. So many airplanes, So little time!
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