The Little Bird That Could
Twelve years after I was at Vance, I was back in the backseat of the T-38. This student and I
were doing pop-up to low angle dive bombing at Oscura Range. 450 knots, 500 feet above
the desert. (What I would have given to be able to do this back in Training Command!)
The idea was to go to a certain point on a certain heading, height, and airspeed. Pull up, roll
over, and dive down to drop a 25 pound practice bomb on a bullseye target on the ground.
(Can you believe they pay me to do this?) The student was good. He had his wings, and
he knew what he was doing. First pass, rst bomb, range oicer transmits, “15 at two.” Not
a bad rst pass. Going over to downwind, back down to 500 feet, get ready for the next
pass.
Back at Vance, I often rode in the back seat with my elbows on the canopy rails. I tended
not to do that at this airspeed and altitude. Kept my hands a little closer to the controls.
THUMP!
We both heard it.
Student: “What was that?”
Me: “I think we might have hit a bird.”
Student “I didn’t see anything.”
“Neither did I but look at the left EGT.”
The left engine was up at close to full hot at mil power. (And after all these years, I still
remember 630-645.)
I said, “Tell you what, pull that engine back and take us up to the hold.”
Holding for the TACAN was a little southeast of where we were on the range. Anyway, we got
there fairly quickly, even climbing with one back at idle.
I said, “Let’s declare an emergency. Call approach and tell ‘em we have a suspected bird
strike.”
Approach vectored a guy in to check us over, look for damage. A solo IP joined up and
looked us over petty thoroughly. (We ew solo fairly often at Holloman. Another great part
of the assignment.) He couldn’t nd any sign of a bird strike. No guts, no dents, nothing. At
idle the engine was at normal temperature.
You start to doubt yourself. Was it just a compressor stall? I was getting close to 2000 hours
in the ’38, and I had never heard of a compressor stall when the jet was straight and level,
throttles not moving. Would the left engine be normal if we pushed it back up? Best not to
try.
I decided to stick with my rst call.
“Let’s leave it at idle. Take us in single engine.”
The student did a single engine straight-in that would have made his UPT instructor proud.
Of course, the long runway at Holloman goes halfway around the world, so stopping wasn’t
a factor.
When we pulled o and got shut down, the re crew looked it over, then maintenance. No
one could nd any sign of a bird. No blood, no guts, and the front compressor looked
normal. So did the last stage of the turbine in the back.
I wrote it up, anyway.
“Sir, are you sure? If you keep the write-up, we’ll have to pull the engine.”
“I know what I saw and what I heard. Sorry, but go ahead and pull it.”
I started to really doubt. For the next day and a half.
Then I got the phone call.
“Major ####, this is Chief Soandso at the engine shop. We just took that engine apart.”
“And?”
“It’s shelled. The rst and second stage compressors are intact, and the last turbine stage,
but everything else is gone. Plenty of feathers and bird guts, though.”
How in the world the bird managed to get that far, I have no idea. But I’m glad I stuck with
plan “A.”
