Well, here's a scary one... I hit a deer on the runway tonight.  The plane and
I are OK.  Here's what happened.  I had just finished the annual and was
finishing my second test flight.  It was dusk, VFR, and winds were calm. I had
landed once.  Everything was performing well so I decided now was a good time
to get my night currency back.  I taxied back to the active at Romeo airport
in Michigan and took off, remaining in the pattern.  Everything was normal
right into the flair.  Then I saw a line of deer crossing the runway right in
front of me.  Three, four or five, in a row, I'm not sure the count.  The
field had been recently plowed on both sides of the runway so the ground was
brown, same color as the deer.  And being after sunset, there was some light
which made it even more difficult to see the animals.  My brain took a second
or two register "deer", with "danger", with "pull up" and "full power".  It
happened so quick.  Another example of how people buy the farm without even
knowing what hit them except maybe, "darn".  As I passed over them, I heard
and felt a "thunk" from the left side.  It was not violent, just a bump.  The
Angle of Attack warning blared "Angle Angle Push".  During this time, the
landing lights, strobes and nav lights were all on.
    For a few seconds, I couldn't think beyond the fact that I was alive,
moving through the air, and, "what was that thunk I heard?"  The landing gear
lights remained green.  Beautiful sight!  But that just meant the microswitch
was still closed.  There could still be damage.  I then noticed my airspeed
was low, 85 knots, and I wasn't climbing fast.  Dumb, I only had 22 inches of
manifold pressure so I put in normal climb power.  I left the gear and flaps
down and entered the cross wind leg.
    I then radioed for anyone on the unicom frequency and a Cessna just
taxiing out to the active responded.  I warned him about the deer on the
runway, that I had hit one, and that I needed him to visually check my gear.
He positioned himself so that he could get a look at the gear as I made a low
pass over the runway.  He said it looked normal.  That was useful to me since
it likely meant the tire and wheel were OK and my down light was still green.
I came around again and landed uneventfully (albeit with some angst).
    Post flight inspection revealed the rest of the story.  The left gear was
fine.  No sign of impact.  The left inboard gear door was not so lucky.  The
leading edge lower corner was crushed and the hinge was deformed upward.  The
impact must have just caught the lower tip of the door, as anything more
substantial would have taken the door off the airplane.  The prop showed no
signs of deer impact nor was there any adverse sign elsewhere.
    This could have easily been a disaster.  Had I froze and allowed the
landing to continue into the deer I would have hit possibly three of them and,
I'm guessing, totaled the airplane.  As it was, the least vital part of the
airplane was sacrificed.  There had been another airplane in the pattern doing
touch and goes so this had not been a quiet country airport evening.
    There was an awful lot of luck playing tonight.  Bad luck that deer chose
that moment to cross the runway.  Bad luck about the time of day and the poor
lighting.  But remarkably good luck that my instinctive reaction was to pull
up and that I still had enough energy to do that without stalling.  And good
luck about the severity of the impact.
    There are some risks that we just can't eliminate.  But with careful
flying and maintenance we can eliminate a ton of others.  In balance, it's
still a fantastic hobby.

There but for the grace of God go I,

Ed de Chazal
N361DC