I Hit a Bird With My Helicopter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- In my helicopter flyovers videos of California lots of commenters I’ve had a few near misses with birds. For the first 13 years as a pilot I was lucky to avoid hitting birds but recently my luck ran out. Bird strikes in aircraft can be extremely dangerous. They’re obviously bad for the bird that gets hit but the impact can also incapacitate the pilot and even cause a crash. In this video I show what happened in my bird strike, how I reacted, what I could have done better, and examine the damage.
I also want to acknowledge Marine aviators Capt. Jeffrey Bland and 1st Lt. Thomas Heitmann, who died on Sept. 19th 2011 when their helicopter struck a hawk.
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If you were in my shoes would you have handled the bird strike differently?
Micah Muzio I would likely have either panicked and crashed or thought “meh,” and kept going and probably had a worse problem haha.
Please fly over Malibu shoreline, low and slow :)
Can you do a video on cost of the helicopter day to day with gas and insurance and the price of the helicopter itself
Yes, I'd have shit my pants.
Did you fly back that day after you checked the helicopter or did you wait for the mechanic's ok?
Poor bird must have missed an instruction from ATC.
DroverChicago bird failed at see and avoid
Possible pilot deviation. The FAA should reconsider that bird’s license.
The bird didn’t have its transponder on.
What does a bird squawk for suicide?
@@erikk77 "Blue Horseshoe Loves Anacott Steel" 🤷♂️😂
erikk77 7500 😂
Wouldn’t change anything; you remained calm and in control, and quickly made a plan to set down and visually inspect. Good job.
Love the shirt I had a 1986 conquest tsi It was a badass car.
Glad everything was okay. Stressful! RIP Mr. Bird
Glad you & the chopper is safe.
RIP my feathered friend
This is really growing on me, my passion to fly a copter, and to look down. Love that Enstrom Helicopter. Pretty compact but tall mast on that, and I understand that is to give the rotor blades some clearance around them. Which model and year is this awesome helicopter ?
New Hall below?
whats for dinner :D?
You have not died in vain little bird - your life has taught us all an important lesson. RIP
Put one of those bird stamp things on the side like a WW2 bomber
I'm very impressed with how calm you handled that situation. That was a scary moment! Glad you are ok.
jasoncyclist Thanks, Jason! The situation played out about as well as possible but there’s always something learn. 🙂
Hi Micah. Just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoy watching your videos all the way from the UK - you provide some escapism in these weird days, and I also find them fascinating - comparing life in SoCal to the UK. The production quality of the videos and the way you explain flying (to someone like me who has only flown a heli once) is fascinating. Also, really glad you made it through safe. Please keep the heli vids coming, I look forward to each.
Ian Outterside couldn’t agree more. Micah your videos do a great job of taking my mind off things. Thanks for posting.
Hello there, Ian ;)
The controller instantly recognized a potential pan pan and helped you get in fast, even if you didn't call for it. Absolute pro.
Let me guess, after this happened you radioed ATC and said "we're gonna be in the Hudson".
ATC: Uhhh the Hudson. Repeat
Fully agree, that is one super helpful ATC
Totally agree. He only gave the necessary info as Micah came in.. Perfect guide in.
Glad you are okay! We've been enjoying your videos since March, keep up the great work and stay safe up there!
Stay safe. Don’t let our requests pressure your flight plans 🐦 Thanks for your awesome LA videos!
Sad that the bird died, but I'm glad that you and your helicopter ended up unhurt.
Yeah, I’d instantly roll into a barrel roll avoiding the bird..piece of cake 😴😂
Glad you're safe post-bird-strike. These debriefs are helpful for pilots, ATC and pax.
Did you have to log the strike and submit to authorities other than mechanical inspection?
Thanks to pilots/pax sharing their UX in the comments. #MicahFlies #birdstrike
Mitsubishi Starion > Dead bird!!! :) I hear Maverick in the background, too close for missiles, going to guns!!!
Wow, happy to see a safe landing. Also, love the Mitsubishi Conquest TSI shirt. A good friend of mine had one new.
That was lucky! I had one very similar in the jet ranger, it happens so fast you can't really do too much but reflex and hope for the best. Good job!
Wow very informative and I’m glad everything went well. Didn’t realize the brevity of the situation and how much damage a bird can potentially cause. Glad you took the proper precautions! Learned something new today
The bird will not be forgotten. The bird is the word
Lucky it didn't go in through the door mate !
U did what you were supposed to...aviate navigate communicate
you woke the guy sleeping in his car at 7:48 :(
Pilot: I hit a bird with my helicopter
Bird: (currently unavailable for comment)
I would have landed shortly after the incident. More concerned with the tail rotor. Main rotors could handle it. But, you know your aircraft... interesting story:: I used to fly out of Boeing Field (Seattle) and one specific hawk seemed to enjoy flying under my rotor-wash while I flew.. I could nearly reach out and touch the bird... that bird knew to drop vs climb through the main-rotors.. it happened several times... so, several chopper pilots experienced the exact same bird enjoying the challenge.
Maybe Finnish Army should just train anti-aircraft pidgeons instead of using them Stingers.
Where did you get that Mitsubishi starion shirt ? . I have a 87 and 89 really need that shirt in my life. Glad you where ok. Safe flights
Glad you’re okay!
Let me just thank you for not making click bait. Im so happy that the video STARTED with what the title said, and continued from there. Thank you for making great content.
Glad you’re safe, didn’t know how dangerous it could be
Great job! I fly for a 135 operator and if we land for a bird strike we can inspect and if the strike is on a non-rotating part, and there is no damage, we can depart. If the bird struck a rotating part, the helicopter is grounded until a mechanic comes out and inspects it. Love your videos!
Glad that you're safe. I would've handled it the same as you handled it. Poor little flyer.
I don't know if this idea is feasible but you should do a helicopter trip across the country! obviously stopping at various locations along the way! Kind of like a road trip but in a helicopter haha
So glad you made a video on this. Being aware of all the dangers and precautions with flying helicopters is so important to any regular viewer
Enjoying your Mica flies videos!
Its good that you are safe. I just watch your video. Iam watching here in the Philippines.
Very informative video. Thank you! This is great for showing my flight students.
Nice Mitsubishi Starion t shirt! I'm glad the bird strike wasn't any worse!
I've had 4 bird strikes, only one, a seagull over Santa Monica did about $3500 of damage and took out the landing lights on a R44. Over the 605 river bed once had a suicidal pidgin dive through the disc and hit just above my head, sounded like a shotgun went off but no damage just blood all along the right side of ship.
Always look out for birds over rivers and trash landfills and turning on your landing lights seems to help.
Wow. 4 birdstrikes?!?! Glad you're ok.
It could’ve ended a lot worse for you. Luckily you had no injuries. The bird is gone but not forgotten
Its an Enstrom .......tough helicopter
Mighty Enstrom! 👍
Looks like bird made an error in judgement and turns into your heli. If bird encounters happen this quickly I wouldn't overcompensate to quickly
because the end result is undetermined and could stress the heli. I have experience flying heli on computers :)
Yes, over reaction is a killer.
Mitsubishi Starion Turbo...nice!
I love your videos and have shared a few to my facebook page. Glad everything turned out ok (minus the bird) . And I also thought how nice that ATC was!
I like your videos . Mary Babiec
Mitsubishi Starion tshirt... nice!
Such a good video man! I just hit a bird last week either taking off out of Memphis or landing in Salt Lake City. It was 2am so I have no idea which one because it was dark and we didn't hear it even though it hit right at the 6 o'clock position on the nose of the plane. I was in an Airbus A-300 so it would have to be a damn goose for me to hear it!!! I thought you did awesome handling the situation. This video was so cool to me for multiple reasons. I used to flight instruct for ATP in Long Beach and had a student with a turbine Malibu based out of Whiteman airport which was probably the only airport that I NEVER landed at while I was there. He would fly his Malibu from Whiteman to Long Beach for his training and on the day that he flew to KLGB for his ATP checkride, he hit a bird landing in Long Beach! And 13 years of flying in SoCal and never hitting a bird is pretty amazing to me. I've been flying since 2004 and I've probably hit birds 50 times! I'm a bird magnet!
Wow, man. I'm glad your bird strikes have been non-events! Thanks for absorbing all the birds so I don't have to!
Love your starion turbo shirt
GREAT controller, hope you sent the tower some pizza! :D
Haha, I've sent quite a few pizzas upstairs.
Why do some helicopters have the linkage exposed? Something to do with power?
The pitch links need to be exposed on the main and tail rotor because of flapping no good way to cover that area.
A well a everybody's heard about the bird, Bbb bird, bird, b-birds the word.
Did you TWEET your experience? You should have continued on and just WING it. You had quite a TAIL to tell. What frequency did you SQWARK? Were you listening to the Byrd's?
:-O Holy crap that was scary bro! This was still very awesome and yeah I was wondering why you didn't tell the TC that you might have had a bird strike. "Nothing bad can happen now" lol. We know about that statement. Great video, thank you for sharing.
Great landing, not even a jitter from the camera!! SMOOOOOTTTHHHHHhhhhhhhh!!! Glad there was zero damage.........
So, now we've seen, first hand, that there is about a 20 second or so brain processing lag time, which Sully also experienced. So glad you were able to land safely (and not on the Hudson) and there was no damage.
Good landing and keeping calm using ATC to help and good job on risk management for the landing site too
And yes that is a very pretty helicopter
Dude! That Starion shirt is rad!!!
Man those so-cal controllers are really nice and helpful
Agreed!
I'm really loving these flying videos.
So glad your're okay & did not have a mishap with your Enstrom🚁. Good job on keeping cool, level headed, & most importantly. . . .FLYING THE AIRCRAFT & not jerking around with the cyclic, collective, & anti-torque pedals! Job well done with ATC as well. Fly safe! RIP bird. . . 🕊
Wow you do the best videos. Because of your Flying Videos I have just bought ORBX southern California Scenery for X-plane 11 as I fly R66 in the simulator. I'm from the North of England ( Leeds West Yorkshire ).
Just subscribed, Micah! For several reasons:
1. Good call on the emergency, and you told the controller, "cool". Hehe
2. You're the second one I've found named Micah, I have a good friend in Texas with the same name,
3. I have a friend with N94805, one digit shy of your bird.
Seems like divine intervention, man! Great video.
Micah! Earlier I suggested Whiteman-Pasadena-Foothills tour, since I trained and flew R22s from there in the '90s. Looks like you dropped by my old base, even if by accident. Thx.
Didn't even have to request it! You flew over my childhood neighborhood and my Grandpa's house on Pierce st directly across from Whitman Airport in Pacoima! I've been in two wars with the US Army (Task Force Falcon Kosovo and Iraqi Freedom Iraq) but I still only have nightmares of growing up there.... Seriously! The LAPD Crack House Batter-Ram first instituted on Louvre st, which was my street during the 80's crack epidemic. Hard to believe that I'm a successful dentist living in peaceful Colorado Springs, CO!
So you're saying there is a slight chance that the grease on my car's hood might be from helicopters. Lol
I seriously have to stop watching these videos. Recently sold an investment property and have about $115K USD. I also live in northern New England about 60 miles from a helicopter flight school .... The bubble-like canopy and slower flight speeds helicopters provide are getting to me....I must resist
A question from this video and also your "road" trip back from Texas with the Robinson. How do you pay for Ground Service at a Non-HomeBase Airport? Do they have an alliance or something, that you pay a membership? Or do you pay as you go?
Mother’s Day in Christchurch New Zealand.... have been for a walk with my husband, bought a takeaway latte (still no eating in here) .... and now sitting on my beanbag watching Micah explain a bird strike!! Got to laugh....it’s actually relaxing listening to you Micah and getting a bird’s eye view of you landing!!! Best videos .. your music is very chill!!!
As a airline aircraft engineer (A&P) I can't tell you how many times I've pulled bird guts outa jet engines, you can always smell this fishy wet dog smell first.
I had bits of a pelican beak stuck in the interservises panel on a RR RB-211 once....the joys of the job.
Hi Micah Muzio... If I were in your shoes, I hope I would have handled the strike as you did. I have 60 hours in a Hughes 269a and I was going through a check list after the strike. Back in the early 60s after getting out of the Navy I decided I wanted to fly choppers. I paid $2400 dollars for flight school and 60 hours of flight time. The school was based out of Burbank airport and we would go over to Whiteman to practice. My solo cross country would be the last time I would fly... I survived this very long terrifying day what should have been a 25 mile and maybe 1.5 hours, round trip, from Burbank. After getting to my original destination to get my log signed and I can't recall why that wasn't an option but I had to look at my alternative, Long Beach Airport. I contacted LB ATC requesting to land and because of the weather conditions (smog) I was told I would have to get in the holding pattern with the rest of the traffic. For me that was not an option so I asked permission to fly through and was told I would have to fly around the airport and was given instructions. Well, after about 15 minutes I realized I was back in LB control zone and about that time ATC came on the radio telling all aircraft to hold their position as they had an unidentified helicopter in their control zone and then the ATC asked if it was helicopter 8757 foxtrot? When I acknowledged it was, he came back with "why you ding-a-ling" and I snapped back that I was a student pilot and I needed his help not his sarcasm. He apologized and instructed me keep flying over I 5 and watch for the Disneyland helicopter that would be landing at Disneyland in about 10 minutes. Well, the next thing I knew, the Sikorsky was over the top of me and I was fighting for my life. The down wash just about put me into the ground. That really shook me up and I had to land in a field off of Harbor Blvd. and recover. After a bit I got back into the air and headed for Huntington Beach. My parents lived there and I figured I could land close to their house and regroup and figure out what my next move would be. I need to shorten this up…I got my composer back, found an airfield nearby, got log book signed, topped off fuel tank, sun set before I got back, could not contact Burbank tower, was informed radio transmission was garbled and needed to get radio fixed. All-in-all it was a very stressful day and I decided I should keep my feet on the ground. It was a good experience and I’m glad I did it. From the cockpit view it brought back good, mostly, memories. Thanks Micah.
Very impressed with how calm you were. Glad you are safe and you're helicopter isn't damaged but...I was kinda hoping when you got out that you're helicopter looked like a horror film and covered with blood. Sucks about the bird though (insert Tommy Boy giggle).
Glad you’re safe and that there was no damage to any critical components! Even better, you had the video for a post-incident analysis of what you did, and what could you have improved upon (e.g., first notifying ATC of a suspected bird strike). I don’t know what non-commercial operational regulations are, but are you required to file a bird strike report to the FAA?
I was going to say it almost looked like you were over the 126, I-5, 14 are when the strike happened... you handled that amazingly. I had a condor collide with the Vertical Fin and Stabilizer on my glider, out of Tehachapi. That was a tense glide.
Former US Army helo pilot here. I think you did just about everything right. Most importantly...maintain aircraft control. You checked your instruments to make sure everything was in the GREEN, etc. If there was damage to the rotor system you'd have felt it right away...video looks like you picked up a bit of a vibration. Once everything is checked out then think about making a precautionary landing to a suitable spot. Bird strikes can go from a nothing burger to a full on loss of components and crashing.
Holy crap, Muzio!! You watch yourself flying over Sesame street. Sad for the bird, glad you're okay and you handled that like an absolute pro.
Dude, love the shirt!!! I miss my 89 tsi😭
Very informative for someone who doesn't know just how dangerous a bird hit can be !!!! Very thankful that you and your helicopter are okay!!!! Whew !!!! Every day is a gift to not take for granted, right ?
Great video, thanks for sharing. My only observation is, when you were talking to the ATC guy at the airstrip you answered his queries at least a couple of times, "WE are ok with that". Who was the other person with you in you helicopter, Casper the ghost maybe, because I couldn't see anyone else? I look forward to watching more of your flights. I recently enjoyed your overfly of Disneyland.
Closure rate and your reaction time were both quick IMO. I do agree with your afterthought that ATC should have been made aware of the situation. Thanks for documenting and posting the event, I'm sure it will help others who see this. Question? Did you go a purchase a lottery ticket on your way home? I would have! 🍀🤙🏼
Great video, with some fantastic lessons and commentary due to the unfortunate strike. I think you did everything right. Though you mentioned not contacting ATC with that info early on, your mind was likely focused on changes in the controls and the instruments, and you still told them while a good distance away (Looked like while around 2-3 miles out). Keep it up Micah and thank you for the awesome video (RIP Mr bird and condolences to their family).
Also hope this is your last bird strike video. That's kinda scary man. Glad everything ended up ok (RIP birdie). Can't help but feel that since you are making videos for sharing with all of us on TH-cam there seems to be a vague sense of responsibility on my end. Thanks, and safe flying!
Great video and very informative. I love your shirt by the way. I had an 88 ESI-R and miss that car. Thanks for providing amazing content!
Well done. I fly fixed wing. No bird strikes yet. I encounter birds (and other wildlife) more at the airport in the pattern than anywhere else. I live in Albuquerque and have encountered coyotes trotting up and down the runway more than once. Happy flying (and stay safe)!
Micah, glad that you are okay and the helicopter sustained no damage. RIP for the bird, but sometimes you simply don't have enough time to react. BTW, big shout out for the Conquest/Starion shirt in the video! As a gear head growing up in the 80s, that was a fun car to drive! :) Keep the vids coming and stay safe out there, both in the air and on the ground.
Thank goodness everything is OK! If something was to happen, LA Co. Fire Air Operations is next door! Fly safe!
Blessing for you that Enstrom designed the pc links to be INSIDE the mast. Shudder to think of the outcome would have been if they were placed as like on the Jet Ranger or the Cobra!
Micah, are you also a fixed wing pilot or just rotary? Also, can you include Palmdale in your future fly by videos? Thanks.
All your videos are great.They're are a nice change from all the negative stuff on TH-cam .aka the virus.I do have a question for you...how much fuel do you carry and what is the range for the copter.....a big fan from Toronto
So, you hit a bird... with your 'bird? At least yours was bigger. Mr. Cool. That had to have been a few unnerving moments.
Did you hear the report came out on that helicopter crash out of John Wayne Airport from a couple years ago? The helicopter that crashed into some houses shortly after takeoff killing all but one on board. (Article is in today’s Daily Pilot a local publication of the LA Times) Turns out it was a weight distribution issue and the total weight was 76 pounds over its limit. Moral - always get the weight of your passengers and if you can weigh them before they get on board.
No you did all the right things as you were trained! But I would be having pucker affect until I saw all my Gauges were still in the green. And the aircraft was still flying and seeing no problems until I got on the ground! You where lucky!
Hit a duck once and it blew out the lower chin bubble. That blew open the doors, Hughes 500 D, exploded on the pedals and ... ya you can imagine.