The accident in Brazil points out the serious issue of bird strikes.  Thank God that the Harrelsons had a fortunate outcome.

 

Years ago at the airstrip in Provincetown MA, we constantly had to deal with seagulls being in one’s flight path, and as a rule we would always try to fly beneath them when relatively close to the ground during landing or take-off.  I think a bird’s natural instinct is to dive out of harm’s way, but when they are within a few hundred feet of the ground, they fly up or left or right.  During my first commercial summer, I flew an old 1931 Stinson SM8A on sightseeing flights, 400 hours in 10 weeks with 4-5 landings per hour.  I never had a strike, whereas transient aircraft without this knowledge were hitting about one a week.  Luckily there were no accidents, most likely because of the birds being smaller and some good luck.

 

Peter Van Arsdale

St. Louis