r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/xXboxPlaysx • May 26 '23
B-52 Military Bomber Hits Birds Mid Flight Video
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u/BillionTonsHyperbole May 26 '23
Fun Fact: According to Bird Law, the bigger bird has the right of way. Those birds that were reduced to a fine pink mist remembered too late.
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u/young_fire May 26 '23
Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.
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u/Party_Side_1860 May 26 '23
Hummingbirds are illegal tender
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u/baconator_out May 26 '23
Really, that tender huh? I'll catch a few tomorrow and fry them up.
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u/furloco May 26 '23
I mean... well... filibuster
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u/the_monkeyspinach May 26 '23
I can clearly see you know nothing about the law. It seems like you have a tenuous grasp on the English language in general.
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u/Cash4Duranium May 26 '23
I demand satisfaction.
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u/matrimc7 May 26 '23
Ok, let me pencil you in for high noon tomorrow.
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u/nodeymcdev May 26 '23
Calm down, calm down. I know you’re hungry. Well get to our hot plates soon!
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u/Crash_WumpaBandicoot May 26 '23
Although true, in bird culture this is still considered “a dick move”
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u/Raps4Reddit May 26 '23
Fun fact: humans are the only mammal to kill a bird that high.
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u/InsomniacHitman May 26 '23
How do you know that bird was high?
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u/kenman884 May 26 '23
Bruh did you see his reaction time? [10] for sure
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u/86itall May 26 '23
Ahhhh r/trees nostalgia. Thanks for this.
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u/_ganjafarian_ May 26 '23
Ya I was gonna say, I miss the times ppl would post how high they were with a number from 1 to 10. Brought back fond memories
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u/HanzoShotFirst May 26 '23
What about bats?
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u/Apneal May 26 '23
Not aware of any bats that fly thousands of feet in the sky.
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u/Ciraldo May 26 '23
Bats can fly to 10,000 feet
https://www.batcon.org/article/bats-aloft-a-study-of-high-altitude-feeding/
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u/xxLusseyArmetxX May 26 '23
That's altitude, which technically does not mean bats could fly with 10000 feet of nothing under them, only that they reach places that are 10000ft high, but I would assume that's because bats can also live in high altitude places.
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u/RedditedYoshi May 26 '23
Oh shit, the bat flight altimeter fandom is really heating up.
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u/DigThatFunk May 26 '23
This is the exact moment that like 7 years ago u/unidan would pop in with some sort of insanely informative "well, actually..." until it came to light he was such a narcissist that he heavily manipulated the upvote system (extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol)
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u/EkkoGold May 26 '23 edited May 26 '23
extra dumb cause his info was interesting enough on its own to succeed lol
The amount of truly interesting information which goes ignored/unnoticed/unseen is staggering. The fact that you know who Unidan is/was is likely a byproduct of his vote manipulation.
Just being interesting is no guarantee of being seen/heard. You need a good bit of luck on top (or to cheat a bit)
It's just as likely had he never done that then nobody would know who he is, and most of his content would sit with 5-10 votes
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u/glemnar May 26 '23
You 100% didn’t read even the first two sentences of the article, because it’s saying the bats come out of a cave that’s not far from sea level (that area of Texas is quite flat) and fly anywhere from 3,000-10,000 feet up
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u/Ciraldo May 26 '23
You would assume wrong, the cave in the study is only around 700ft above see level so thay leaves arounf 9,300 feet to climb
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u/Upbeat_Sheepherder81 May 26 '23
Most species of bats don’t hunt birds, and none that I know of fly that high.
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u/AprilWatermelon May 26 '23
Poor birds sucked into a blender made before its great great great great great great great great grandparents
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May 26 '23
Birds are so stubborn. Like the pigeons you see in the road that don't move even as you're about to run them over.
Hey flock, there's a massive flying fortress headed right for you, move maybe?!?!
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u/FloridaGatorMan May 26 '23
I don't think birds really have the mental capacity or instinct to understand what is happening when something that big is flying that fast. It's the same with squirrels, they often get hit by cars because their instinct is to try and juke out the predator and make a run for a tree. The problem is the cars are moving faster than any predator can move and is not chasing them.
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May 26 '23
That's true. I think I'm suffering from "it looks like it's moving slow from down here on the ground" syndrome.
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u/live4lax25 May 26 '23
Survival of the fittest? Nah
Survival of the GetTheFuckOuttaTheWayiest
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u/HeinleinGang May 26 '23
‘Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.’
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u/Amathindon May 26 '23
Rabbits, on the other hand, do not soar but do get sucked into jet engines. The life lesson here: don't cross the runway in front of a jet.
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u/bigbcor May 26 '23
Rabbits also get turned to pink mist by nascar. “Let us pause a moment to remember the wabbits…”
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u/__Osiris__ May 26 '23
But the bomber was damaged and had to do an emergency landing, where as most of the birds lived
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u/Pocketfulofgeek May 26 '23
This is just an example of why Australia lost the Emu War.
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u/NPKenshiro May 26 '23
Yea those two birds probably cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars on top of the normal (high) expenses of the sortie.
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u/Thedrunner2 May 26 '23
I wonder how often that actually happens
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u/OttoEnjoyer May 26 '23
Pretty often sadly
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u/Dchane06 May 26 '23
If you get a flight radar app that notifies when any plane puts out an emergency signal, you’ll realize emergency landings are pretty common lol.
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u/Aksds May 26 '23
I wonder how many are Pans vs maydays.
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u/Rjjt456 May 26 '23
Pans are a "I need special attention" kind of thing while Mayday is more of a "I NEED HELP, NOW!".
Pans aren't life threatning while Maydays in most cases are. A pan can escalate to a mayday though.
A pan gives you priority while a mayday makes everyone bend over backwards to help you out.
Edit: I forgot to add that my conclusion it that most emergency calls are pans.
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u/worldspawn00 May 26 '23
Yeah, plane is doing something weird, let's get it on the ground before it becomes an emergency, is usually a good idea.
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u/bethtadeath May 26 '23
Recommendations for good/preferred apps?
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u/C8H8O3--Pudding May 26 '23
Second that request, I had one a while back where you could track flights but never saw one with emergency signals!
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u/sobornostprime May 26 '23
Flightradar24 at least has the possibility to set up notifications if there are emergency signals
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u/UtherPenDragqueen May 26 '23 edited May 26 '23
My former B52 pilot dad says it looks like they’re dumping fuel so they can make a safe emergency landing; most likely the bird strike caused engine damage
Edit for clarity: Apologies for the incorrect information; thank you to skiller757 and the others (some less gracious) who pointed out that B52s don’t dump fuel like some other aircraft can. My dad is almost 86, and has some memory loss and dementia related to a stroke in 2013. His last B52 flight was in 1983; earlier in his career he did Operation Chrome Dome missions to keep an eye on the Soviets, followed by 16 months of bombing missions over Viet Nam and Cambodia. Give an old Vet a break.
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u/kcstrom May 26 '23
I was wondering if that's what that was. Ugh. I would be pissed if that fell on me. Less pissed though than if a flaming B52 fell on me. 🤔
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u/UtherPenDragqueen May 26 '23
Jet fuel washes off; flaming wreckage, not so much
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May 26 '23 edited May 26 '23
As long as you use GOOD SOAP (like dawn). and probably have to throw out the clothes that got soaked in it.
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u/7N10 May 26 '23
I wore some coveralls for months after getting splashed with JP-5. The smell never truly goes away
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u/ChaoticGoku May 26 '23
Did you ever take it to a dry cleaner? I had a customer drop off clothes that had gotten fuel splashed from a stuck gas station hose and the smell came right out. Plus, occasionally whole batches had to be recleaned due to a filter needing to he changed out and the clothes smelling like petroleum (which is what gets used to clean them efficiently)
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u/Krynn71 May 26 '23
Jet fuel is a whole different beast. We work with it at my job and have on-site showers for people to immediately wash it off and change their clothes (or we send them home if they don't have a change of clothes with them).
One time a guy decided to ignore that he got his foot doused in some and kept working for a couple hours with a soaked sock, he had pretty bad chemical burns the next day and had to be out a few days and go to urgent care.
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u/BannedSvenhoek86 May 26 '23
Gas station gasoline is NOT the same type of fuel as JP-5. That's the shit they use to fuel military jet engines.
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u/JustOkCryptographer May 26 '23
Basically kerosene. People hear "jet fuel" and think it's some seriously dangerous stuff, but regular pump gas is more volatile, making it more likely to ignite by accident. There are different specifications such as J-5, J-8, and J-A but they are all basically kerosene. In England, they refer to kerosene as paraffin.
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u/Separate_Finding6077 May 26 '23
seriously dangerous stuff
- it gives you cancer due to additives
- it can give you serious alergic/sensitivity reactions, your skin may peel off
- if will damage your nervous system due to easily absorbed lead compounds
- it will contaminate waterways for a long time
But it won't burn easily and is not that volatile.
Still fucking dangerous in my books.
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u/viktari May 26 '23
Neither does the cancer
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u/7N10 May 26 '23
Believe it or not, a friend of mine on that same deployment developed testicular cancer a few years down the road (that he eventually beat).
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u/WeimSean May 26 '23
just use a match, it burns right off.
Seriously though from that altitude it's doubtful you would even notice it.
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May 26 '23
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u/AmIFromA May 26 '23
I learned all I know about how to set jet fuel on fire from "Die Hard 2", thank you very much.
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u/palmej2 May 26 '23
Interesting fact, neither jet fuel, diesel, nor kerosene are technically "flammable"...
they are [combustible](https://blink.ucsd.edu/safety/research-lab/chemical/liquids/index.html)
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u/Gramma_Hattie May 26 '23
I bet a good amount of it would evaporate on its way down
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May 26 '23
If it’s high enough. Idk what that altitude is but I don’t assume it’s this one.
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u/Weekly-Setting-2137 May 26 '23
Tell that to all us getting Parkinsons from jet fuel.
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u/ApenguinnamedRUA May 26 '23
There's a big difference between a one off event and long term exposure of working with it
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u/Ha1lStorm May 26 '23
Sounds like you’ve never used a Mr Clean Magic Eraser Extra Durable Cleaning Pad™ before
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u/Abject_Film_4414 May 26 '23
Fuel dumps evaporate within a few thousand feet. Normal rules are a minimum of 5000 feet except emergencies.
Low level fuel dumps do indeed leave a horrible sticky residue.
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u/skiller757 May 26 '23
Current B52 pilot, we can’t dump fuel and the B52 has never been able to dump fuel. They were shooting an approach relatively close to Minot and that’s why they are so low at this point. The birds did cause damage. One of the engines had to get replaced.
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u/Scrappy_The_Crow May 26 '23
Former BUFF crewdog here (EW). Was stationed at Minot and spent many hours when I was SOF with the bird noise gun.
The only fluid BUFFs could eject was the water from the injection system up through the Gs.
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u/Nebnerlo2 May 26 '23
I thought the throttle up was maybe to clean it out
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u/Vercengetorex May 26 '23
This guy rednecks. When in doubt, throttle out.
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u/OhyoOhyoOhyoOhyo May 26 '23
Pilot: "These damn birds"
puts the plane in 5th gear and floors it
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u/now4somethingdiff May 26 '23
Are you sure about that? I thought I’ve read that B52 doesn’t have a fuel jettison system. It looks like it’s just exhaust since it’s dark and fuel jettisoning like more white or gray than dark.
And those asking, rarely are they dumping fuel to reduce fiery crash risk, that only really matters if control or landing gear issues… engine out conditions are designed for - bird mechanical whatever. The fuel jettison is to reduce weight to below max landing weight. Planes structure is designed so they can take off heavier than they can land, with the idea they burn the fuel weight off in flight.
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u/Sacred_Fishstick May 26 '23
It's very unlikely that they decided to dump fuel so quickly. Aviate, navigate, communicate. They were still on step one.
What we're likely seeing is that they lost an engine and immediately went to full toga thrust to compensate, which on (at least some B52s) means actually using more than 100% thrust.
That is accomplished by basically pumping coolant directly into the engine to keep the temperature under control while the engine spins faster than it should. This is extremely inefficient and causes unburnt fuel to make its way out of the engine.
So I guess technically they are dumping some fuel but not because they want to get rid of it.
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u/basedsuperslimey May 26 '23
This makes me wonder why we didn’t have pilots dumping out garbage bags of pigeons in the ww1 dogfights, seems like a pretty good evasive maneuver
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u/certain_planes747 May 26 '23
Walks into pet store: yes, I’ll have 5 bags of pigeons please
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u/basedsuperslimey May 26 '23
I imagine they had a bunch leftover from the ones that weren’t good at carrying messages
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u/mavrc May 26 '23
I feel like the pet store in that one Monty Python sketch would be easily able to hook that up
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u/Meandering_Marley May 26 '23
"As God is my witness, I swear, I thought turkeys could fly."
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u/Last_Gigolo May 26 '23
Propellers vs jet engines.
It would have been moist dust, at best.
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u/basedsuperslimey May 26 '23
Well I’m hitting up shark tank as soon as ww3 kicks off
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u/Former_Indication172 May 26 '23
Shark tank the show? Or the aquarium exhibit? Because if it's the latter there are easier methods of suicide
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u/Scrappy_The_Crow May 26 '23 edited May 26 '23
Sorry, but your dad is remembering incorrectly -- B-52s have no fuel dumping capability. If there's any fuel coming out, it's due to fuel system damage.
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u/Blaugrana_al_vent May 26 '23
That's not fuel, that's exhaust. B-52 engines aren't particularly known for their eco friendliness.
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u/GeneralNathanJessup May 26 '23
Yea those other engines ramped up fast, you could tell from the pitch change.
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u/xFromtheskyx May 26 '23
You wouldn't dump fuel that quickly after a bird strike. Probably haven't even shut down the engine yet
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u/Dobalina_Wont_Quit May 26 '23
God I wouldn't want to be standing directly under a fuel dump lol
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u/Ein_grosser_Nerd May 26 '23
Its supposed to dissipate before reaching the ground
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u/dontforget2tip May 26 '23
Does the bird smoothie dissipate before landing on heads?
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u/Upbeat_Sheepherder81 May 26 '23
Depends on the altitude. Jet fuel is a lot less volatile than normal gasoline.
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u/SilvermoonTLC May 26 '23
I live in flight path - you can smell it when they dump, but the most I’ve noticed is dust pasted to my windshields.
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u/LugubriousButtNoises May 26 '23
dude, we’re falling right out of the sky
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u/melancoliamea May 26 '23
Not even close. That is just exhaust. You can hear the engines spool up. The old engine tech means it's highly inneficient and polluting. It's there with the 707, herc and P3 turboprops inneficient.
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May 26 '23
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u/whitelimousine May 26 '23
Yeah these fly in my local area, Rarely but you see em, and they literally look like an environmental disaster in flight. In fact until it hits the bird is the first time I’ve NOT seen it hulking out phat lines of dirty exhaust
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u/ValuableFarmer6574 May 26 '23
Idk, I counted the birds before and after on the left side of the plane, 18 before, and 16 after. I think 2 died.
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u/MyFacade May 26 '23
The internet says the B-52 can't dump fuel, so now I don't know what to believe.
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u/GoFlemingGo May 26 '23
I thought planes were built to be fine with bird blending? I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling.
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u/Xeroque_Holmes May 26 '23
I vaguely recall some teacher talking about a frozen chicken test…he might have been trolling.
To the cockpit. It will still absolutely destroy your engines.
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u/Scrappy_The_Crow May 26 '23
Frozen chickens were indeed used for bird strike testing. The thinking was that it simulated a tensed bird. Now they use plastic/clay substitutes.
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u/_-ez May 26 '23
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
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u/pgpathat May 26 '23
At um, at least it was quick?
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u/Schubert125 May 26 '23
We're gonna end up in the Hudson
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u/CultCorvidae May 26 '23
That plane just destroyed $20,000 in government drones.....
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u/Francis_Bonkers May 26 '23
Is the bird okay?
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u/U_So_Smart May 26 '23
Yeah, just give the little guy some time. He's a bit mistified right now,
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u/Conscious_Zebra_1808 May 26 '23
They rest were ok minus the two who were obliterated 😶🌫️
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u/2wenty-3hree May 26 '23
That’s extremely dangerous for the plane. Birds have taken out many planes. Both by smashing through the windscreen or by being sucked into the engines.
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u/____phobe May 26 '23
That’s extremely dangerous for the plane
It looks extremely dangerous for the birds too...
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u/Chocobofarms May 26 '23
B52 has 8 engines. It probably would be one of the better ones for this to happen in. Mind you, fully fuelled, the older ones were so heavy they needed to “burn water” to get the performance for take off.
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u/Routine-Action7326 May 26 '23
Yup u can see the plane dumping fuel after it hits the birds and you can hear the other engines revving up to compensate for the engine loss
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u/TickletheEther May 26 '23
Damn little dudes were clearly tryna get out of the way
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u/CookieJarviz May 26 '23
People in the comments section saying it's dumping fuel. That's not dumping fuel, it throttled up its engines, BUFFs are smoky gals.
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u/Jesus_H-Christ May 26 '23
That and fuel dumps don't come from the jet engines.
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u/dumahim May 26 '23
And I doubt they would have determined to dump fuel that soon.
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u/-safi-jiiva- May 26 '23
Mfs have the whole ass sky to themselves and still choose to be in front of a plane. Thems the deer of the sky
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u/kismethavok May 26 '23
Birds were there first so technically the plane had the whole sky to themselves and chose to damage their plane and make an emergency landing.
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u/Hedge_the_Hog_HtH May 26 '23
Those exact birds are surely younger than the plane. I don't think they know how their ancestors were alone in the skies.
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u/permanentlysick May 26 '23
You have *(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻* the ENTIRE sky
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u/puzzle_factory_slave May 26 '23
flightpath. also, like when you're driving at 200 mph on the interstate, it is difficult to swerve to avoid birds
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u/Worldly_Bill6093 May 26 '23
gotta love when the mechanics just install and engine that they've weeks or even months to get only for it to suck a bird right down to the core.
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u/VAMSI_BEUNO Interested May 26 '23
So the black smoke coming out of it's engines is due to the birds?
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u/point50tracer May 26 '23
The black smoke is caused by them throttling up the other 7 engines after losing the one. B-52s are the only jets I know that roll coal. Seeing them take off is always a bit concerning with all the black smoke.
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u/millijuna May 26 '23
Won’t be doing it for long. They’re finally getting re-engined. With 8 engines that you would normally find on a gulfstream jet. Vastly more fuel efficient, the new engines will have a 4:1 bypass ratio vs the 1.4:1 as on the current engines.
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u/Medical-Competition4 May 26 '23
B-52H can't dump fuel, I don't know why I keep seeing people talking about dumping fuel. It burns fuel by flying around longer.
The exhaust you see coming from the engines is normal for those engines. Happens everytime they fly. They are old engines.
If it was really an emergency, the jet would just land heavy. It would probably exceed the brake limits and burn them up on the runway but they could get the jet on the ground
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u/Iron_Bob May 26 '23
Bird strikes are no joke