Bird strike shatters windscreen - GIF

[mansworld]

So who is the culprit? The pilot or the bird.

[Frank S]

So who is the culprit? The pilot or the bird.

the navigator,

[WmRMeyers]

the navigator,

Nonsense! See my post to mansworld.

[Frank S]

Nonsense! See my post to mansworld.

You are over analyzing both posts, I saw the post as tongue and cheek when the question was who's at fault the pilot of the bird. The most obvious answer was a navigational error on the part of the bird. Once on a flight from Frankfurt to Furth/Nuremberg we encountered a flock of large birds shortly before reaching our designated cruising altitude resulting in a bird strike which at least 1 bird went through one of the engines. The pilot came on the intercom and said folks a flock of birds have just made a serious navigational error and have struck our right engine, I have shut it down this happens sometimes in air travel, we are in no serious danger, and since this is a short flight, we are waiting instructions to either continue on to our destination or return to Frankfurt Main. It is 30 minutes to our intended destination or due to the time it will take to make the turn and receive landing instructions at our takeoff point the time will be closer to one hour. The officials must weigh all circumstances of their decisions in the meantime we are to remain on course.
A couple minutes later the Pilot came back on the intercom and explained we would be required to return to Frankfurt.
Most of us who's final destination was Furth/Nuremberg elected to take the ICEII which departed in 30 minutes after landing we received a full refund on our tickets and our train fare was paid by the airlines Those who chose to wait for the next available flight in an hour arrived only a few minutes before we did but did not benefit of a free trip. I only know this because my traveling companion decided to wait and take the flight so he could rent us a car at the airport. What he found out later was he could have rented a car near the Bahnhof.
So my statement stands the navigator

[WmRMeyers]

So who is the culprit? The pilot or the bird.

Culprit? About the slowest an F-111D can possibly be going is about 100mph. That is almost 150fps. They are more likely to be a minimum of about 450fps. And they weigh a great deal more than a BB, or even a pistol bullet. At mach II, they are upwards of 3000fps. A BB moving at 150fps will punch a hole in your skin. Who is the culprit there? At 3000fps, you probably can't even see the bird. Even as big as goose is. Military pilots wear helmets that restrict their vision to more or less straight ahead. Little to no peripheral vision. And they don't wear them by choice, they are required to wear them. The F-111D aircraft weighs nearly 100,000 pounds. Max takeoff weight, IIRC, was about 96000 pounds, where the aircraft fully loaded, fueled, and crewed was around 104,000 pound. To carry a max weapons and fuel load, they had to launch sort of the max takeoff weight, and hit a tanker to in-flight refuel to get the full load of fuel.

Besides, birds are birds. They do what they do. And they can't move fast enough to get out of the way of something moving from 100 to 1000 or more times as fast as they possibly can. Nor are pilots responsible for what birds do. Usually, they can't even see the birds. "Culprit" indicates culpability. Neither pilots nor birds are culpable.

Bill