Rick Phillips

IT'S A BIRD.....IT'S A PLANE

It began as a routine flight on a hot October afternoon. The weather briefer had given me three thousand scattered and three to five miles visibility for my flight from our small airport at Halifax County, North Carolina to Brunswick County Airport at Southport, NC. There, I was to pick up our company President and the two of us were going to Cincinnati for a meeting the next morning. The winds were light and variable and I filed IFR for four thousand feet. Flight time should be one hour and two minutes for the first leg in our Cessna 210. The Southport / Cincinnati leg would be about three hours and twenty minutes.
After taxi and runup, I called Unicom, taxied into position, hit the clock and smoothly advanced the throttle to full power. My last several flights had been in my Cessna 172 and I am always impressed with the power of the 210 when I first get back into it. Most of my time is in a 210 and I feel very comfortable with it. It is a jewel to fly. A few seconds after liftoff, I pulled the gear up and retracted the take off flaps. Next, I squared it up at 2500 rpms and 25 inches of manifold pressure. Rudder trim eased the work of my right foot and elevator trim neutralizerd pressure to the yoke. I decided to climb out at 110 knots. Once I reached 2,500 feet, I tried contacting Washington Center to pick up my clearance. No luck. "Man, they weren't kidding about that three to five mile visibility." I leveled out at 4,000 feet just as Center confirmed radar contact and gave me my clearance; direct Tar River VOR, direct Wallo Intersection, RNAV direct to Brunswick County Airport, maintain 4,000 feet. Forward visibility was virtually non-existent. "May as well call it IFR." Cowl flap closed, manifold pressure 23 inches, Tachometer 2300 RPM's, mixture leaned, retrim and the work is over. I rechecked the radios and set up the RNAV. Nothing else to do for the next fifty minutes or so except to monitor everything. I always make it a point to have a chart open and keep up with where I am. IFR or VFR, it's just a habit for me.
The trip was routine and uneventful. Washington Center handed me off to Raleigh Approach, next Seymore Johnson AFB, and then Wilmington Approach for the final leg. At twenty miles out, Wilmington called the airport at 12 o'clock and cleared me down to 3,000 feet with instructions to report the field in sight. The visibility had improved but was not that good. Wilmington further advised that no landing or weather information was available for Brunswick County. As I decended to 3,000 feet, I ran the mixture in to full rich. I also throttled back slightly to keep the airspeed from exceeding 180 knots. The air was pretty smooth so I fudged yellow line just a little. I reported back in at 3,000 feet and the controller again instructed me to report the field in sight. The next call came when the controller cleared me to 2,000 feet and advised the airport at 12 o'clock and nine miles. As I decended, I contacted Wilmington and reported Brunswick County in sight and cancelled my IFR flight plan. I thanked the controller for his help and reached over to reset the transponder to the VFR squawk. Continuing the decent, I switched to Brunswick County Unicom and asked for an airport advisory. Brunswick reported surface winds from 100 degrees at 11 knots favoring runway 05 with one aircraft in the pattern doing touch and goes. Acknowledging, I reported entering a seven mile 45 degree intercept for left downwind runway 05 and continued my decent. I throttled back to get the airspeed down to 165 knots so I could lower the landing gear. This would help me slow down for pattern entry. Just as I approached 165 knots, I looked up and happened to see a bird floating on a thermal way out in front of me. As I pulled the landing gear lever down, I thought to myself that the bird would pass off pretty close to me and I continued to watch it but did not focus on it. In the next few seconds, as I approached the area of the bird with what seemed to be lightning speed, my thoughts were that I would pass off just underneath him. The next thing I knew, I saw a flash of black followed by a loud explosion on the windshield. I felt sharp stings to my face, neck, chest, right arm, and shoulder. Instantly, my shirtsleeve, right side, and right pants leg had blood all over them. I looked up to the right side of the windshield and there was a large buzzard stuck in the right sunvisor and headliner. There was a hole that looked big enough to drive a Mack Truck through on the right side of the windshield. And it looked strange to see so clearly straight through to the great outdoors. The noise sounded like a freight train and was deafening. Paper and everything else loose in the cockpit was flying all around like autum leaves in a tornado. I reached over and pulled the very bloody and very dead buzzard loose and dropped him onto the floor on the copilot side. As I looked back up, the airplane was in a sharp nosedown right turn. The VSI was showing a steep decent and I was only at 1700 feet. "FLY THE AIRPLANE FIRST." The words from my instructor over all the years came back to me instantly. Always, "fly the airplane first" and instinctively, I did. The absolute first thing to do was to slow down, get the aircraft under control and stabilized. As I eased back on the throttle ever so slightly, I slowed down to 120 knots. My hands, feet, and mind instinctively seemed to be doing all the right things to make the airplane perform. Rudder trim, elevator trim, throttle. My primary focus was the airspeed indicator and the VSI. Except when absolutely required elsewhere, after the intital impact, my right hand never left the throttle and my left hand never left the yoke. After fifteen or twenty seconds, I called Unicom. "Brunswick County Unicom - Centurion 6619-Charlie- Emergency - I have a bird strike and hole in my windshield. Centurion 6619-Charlie declaring emergency. Emergency landing Runway 05 Brunswick County." If they said anything back to me, I did not hear it. Although I had on a headset, the noise was deafening.
As the airspeed bled down to 120 knots, I had control of the airplane and was at pattern altitude. I pulled in 10 degrees of flaps and slowed to 110 knots. Decent was 500 to 700 feet per minute and I could maintain that by keeping the power up. There was a yaw to starboard due to the hole in the windshield but strong rudder trim made this situation managable. Although my focus was 100% on flying that airplane, I did think at this point about opening the window beside me to relieve some of the pressure from the wind coming through that large hole in the windshield. But, another part of my brain said, "leave well enough alone. You have the aircraft under control, it's stabilized, and besides, there is a tremendous crack running across what is left of the windshield and any sudden change in the airflow or pressure could cause the rest of it to come out." I opted to keep what I had. The turn from downwind to base was my first departure from straight and level. I very gently banked the aircraft. I wasn't sure how it was going to behave. "Needle and ball....needle and ball, don't stress the aircraft." "Airspeed, VSI, Altimeter, ease back the power, don't let anything get away from you at this point" I was saying to myself as the reality of the situation had suddenly become full bore. The turn went well and I leveled out for a few seconds before turning onto final. Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop. The gas was fine. The undercarriage was down, locked, and the light was green, the mixture was full rich, and I screwed the prop to high. There was an eleven knot crosswind at 50 degrees off the nose. This coupled with the large hole in the windshield gave me a strong crab angle on final. "Okay Rick, this is it... get that right wing down....firm up the pressure on the left rudder....just don't overstress the airplane." I was hesitant to apply full opposite rudder again not knowing for sure what would happen. Also, I was afraid too much stress to the airplane might cause the remaining windshield to finish breaking out. And, I knew I was dealing with a different stall speed but did not know what it would be. Once I had the runway made, while gingerly correcting for drift, I pulled in ten degrees more of flaps and slowed to 100 knots...then 90. Everything seemed to be okay and I was on short final. I would hold 90 knots until flare and touch down a little hot. Once more, G.U.M.P. "Now, 50 feet; 40 feet; 30 feet; ease back on the yoke; ease off the power; slightly more back  pressure; easy..........easy..........don't balloon it at this speed.......very gently keep coming back." In a few seconds, I heard what I believe was one of the most beautiful sounds I ever heard. CHIRP!! Touchdown. I was on the ground. The airplane and I both were still in one piece. I braked hard to slow down as I passed the first turnoff. While still rolling, wing flaps identified and up, cowl flaps identitied and open. By the second turnoff, I had slowed down enough to make it. "Brunswick County, 6619-Charlie is clear of the active." In taxiing to the ramp, my mind went back to my good friend and instructor who had drilled all of the right things into me over the years including "FLY THE AIRPLANE FIRST" and how on this day, the big payoff had come.
POSTNOTE:
The next day, I received a call from the mechanic who would be making the repairs. He advised me that he had removed the damaged wing root faring from the leading edge of the right wing and noted that the impact from the buzzard had caused the faring to hit the right aleron pulley causing it to jamb into the fuel line from the right fuel tank and crimping it shut. The fuel system in our 210 is configured so that the fuel selector valve must be set either to the left or right tank but can not be set to burn fuel from both at the same time. As incredible luck would have it, I had the selector set to the left tank. Had I been flying from the right tank, the crimped fuel line could have caused a fuel starvation and loss of the engine at a time when I already had more than enough problems to deal with.