Flight/Planes

  • Like
Reactions: Duke
TonyM said:
I wish the press would get it right it's not hard, A-10's aren't fighter aircraft but provide ground support. Bird strikes happen and the dropping of externals munitions or fuel happens and rarely causes problems.
Click to expand...

Yep. The practice bombs are known as BDU-33s, they have a small spotter charge (basically a puff of smoke) that goes off when they hit the ground, but do not explode. They weight around 25 pounds, or about half again of what a bowling balls weighs. It would definitely ruin your day if one struck you.

The same thing happened last week to the pilot of an IAF Jaguar, an a/c I know Tony is familiar with. He "pickled" not only his practice bombs, but his external fuel tanks as well after a bird took out one of his engines. Here's a spectacular video of the incident.

 
  • Like
Reactions: TonyM
Duke said:
Yep. The practice bombs are known as BDU-33s, they have a small spotter charge (basically a puff of smoke) that goes off when they hit the ground, but do not explode. They weight around 25 pounds, or about half again of what a bowling balls weighs. It would definitely ruin your day if one struck you.

The same thing happened last week to the pilot of an IAF Jaguar, an a/c I know Tony is familiar with. He "pickled" not only his practice bombs, but his external fuel tanks as well after a bird took out one of his engines. Here's a spectacular video of the incident.

Click to expand...

Yeah watched this video a couple of days ago. I think the stores were dropped within the airfield as many bird strikes happen close to the airfield either on take off or approach. I know the Jaguar very well and one thing stands out is that it's considered under powered, losing one engine is never good news but in the Jag well...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Duke
1995 Alaska Boeing E-3 Sentry accident - Wikipedia

Tony, I don't know if you're familiar with this mishap, an AWACS (E-3) that was lost with all hands after a flock of birds took out engines 1 & 2 on take-off in Alaska. Horrific mishap, I knew one of the aircrew slightly.
 
Duke said:
1995 Alaska Boeing E-3 Sentry accident - Wikipedia

Tony, I don't know if you're familiar with this mishap, an AWACS (E-3) that was lost with all hands after a flock of birds took out engines 1 & 2 on take-off in Alaska. Horrific mishap, I knew one of the aircrew slightly.
Click to expand...

I wasn't aware of that accident. Bird strike at low level and loss of engines rarely ends well, think Sully and the Hudson incident which a had a rare good outcome because of a combination of excellent airmanship and luck.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Duke
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back