T-45C down at Kingsville today

That has happened (again?) within the the last month. BASH low- but that one effing turkey buzzard is going sit at the 45 all day long.

Yeah man, birds are to T-45's as flak/SAM's were to Thuds in VN. I'm sure the stories will continue until someone realizes that a single seat jet with a bitchy little motor that cant handle a 1 oz sparrow in the dome, is a bad idea. Oddly enough, my only Goshawk birdstrike was in El Sweato, not the bird swarm haven of the Meridian/Joe patterns.

The 45 is not the problem as much as the engine.. It can't eat crap and keep on going..

I will put in a plug for the T-56.. Saw a guy hit a FLOCK of birds during FLCPs when I was sitting in the LSO Shack.. I picked 38 off the runway. More than a handful went down the intake.. Engine did not give a shit, kept on running, but with a bad cooked bird smell from the ECS.

Have had the puree'd hickory smoked turkey buzzards several times, especially in el sal where they are everywhere. Only had one engine shit itself; The t56 is a tough mother.

This story was mentioned to us during ground school Whiting only a couple of months ago. The instructor also said that Capt. Lucas had a some bad luck with his landing site as well.

Poor IP?

I'd say poor student.

Sucked for him, but I'd rather be alive and unconscious, than the guy in the back who thinks his stud just died, who still needs to land the jet

In an amazingly similar incident in a VA-44 (FRS) T-A4 out of Cecil Field in '69. Lo-Nav w/fellow IP Squadron Leader (O-4) Ross Donaldson RNZAF (Xchange Pilot) rear seat, RP front. Over the Okeefenokee Swamp southern GA, 200-500' agl, 360 kts., a mallard drake smashed through the canopy port side hitting the IP square in the face, shattering his visor. One eye was gouged out, his face & the other eye severely lacerated.

Blinded & thinking they'd had a midair, the IP ejected. The RP calmly climbed to orbit the scene & iniated the successful RESCAP operation, then when relieved on-scene, then returned landing safely to Cecil. The IP was picked up some hours later, in the dark by a special swamp vehicle & rushed to NavHosp JAX.

Donaldson recovered, regaining enough vision in the remaining eye to remain on AD, limited to dual-piloted only status. He finished his Xchange tour, remained in the RNZAF, retiring as a Group Captain (0-6), from his finak posting as CO RNZAF Air Base Blenheim NZ in early '80s. I had the honor of being his Sponsor Officer when he was ordered to VA-44, and we & our families became close friends. He was quite a fellow & aviator, former Test Pilot (grad. of British Empire TPS).
BzB

I concur. I'm wondering how much of that has to do with the fact that there's a giant propeller up front to break things up into "manageable" pieces?

I don't know that they're that manageable. The only turkey buzzard I hit with an engine went straight into the #2 oil cooler intake. From what I could tell standing on the ladder looking in, there was the better part of two feet, a beak, and at least most of a wing to go with all the guts, blood, and feathers. While pureed on impact, it looked like it all came in together.

I take that back. I hit a turkey in Maine. An honest to God turkey wandered onto the runway and prematurely ended a bounce flight in Brunswick. We called tower to do a FOD sweep. They only found turkey parts. In that case the blades did a pretty good job with manageable pieces.

I've had one or two bird strikes in my life... Rotor blades do things to birds that I didn't think was possible...

I took a little bird square in the windscreen once at night. The spot it made was a little bigger than a softball, mostly yellowish in color, and reminded me of hitting a giant bug on the highway. That same night we found close to a dozen more spots like that on the flaps during postflight.

Was he the IP who was publicly berated for not "expecting the unexpected" while preparing for his flight?

Midair? Maybe a reconition problem......perhaps Reindeer, fat jolly dude in a sled, practicing "roof & go" landings?
BzB

This wasn't Hyfi was it? I've been trying to figure out his callsign since he was my onwing back in the day.

I PCS'ed away right before that standdown so I missed the show... but I heard about it from my friends. Weird, and unfortunately there were a lot of other similar weird things back then.

H... You Fucking Idiot