Completely hypothetical question....

So I was chatting with my girlfriend tonight about rockets and we were discussing my 38mm MD rocket on a J1000. Anyway, K'Tesh's story about almost hitting a seagull came up, and it led to the question.

What would happen if something, say a 38mm MD rocket, were to hit a bird while doing around Mach 1ish?


I'm not planning on trying this by any means, but I am curious if the bird would simply be speared or explode. XD

Yeah, the rocket masses about the same as the bird, so... what happens if a seagull hits an aluminum cylinder going mach1?

Either way, kerspray.

You can find animals getting hit at high speed by racecars and exploding, literally. The mess when an Indy car hits a rabbit is indescribable. I'm just glad I was never the guy tasked to clean that mess up

[video=youtube;lgspIiTFWIk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgspIiTFWIk[/video]

[video=youtube;T565zcSdAzE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T565zcSdAzE[/video]

blackbrandt said:

I'm not planning on trying this by any means

Click to expand...

Really?

My wife hit a bird with a golf shot. Two of them (I assume male and female) were flying together. Whacked one right in the head. Fluttered to the ground. Layed there a bit and we thought it was dead. All of a sudden it started shaking. Stood up. Then took off flying. Of course, may be suffering from CTE today.

Besides partially inspiring this thread with a model rocket, I've seen what a sparrow can do to the lip of an intake of a jet at ~400mph. It tore a hole right through the metal and embedded itself into the fiberglass honeycomb material underneath. It was a bloody mess. ID was made by the feathers that were found in the remains.

I suspect that both the bird and the rocket would be fatally damaged depending on where they make contact. A solid body hit, and both are likely to shred.

Equal mass impact would have just as deleterious effect on the rocket.

dhbarr said:

Yeah, the rocket masses about the same as the bird, so... what happens if a seagull hits an aluminum cylinder going mach1?

Either way, kerspray.

Click to expand...

I've experienced hitting a bird with my helmet. At speed. Don't actually remember it, but somehow got back to the pits for a driver change during an enduro. Then there's an Indycar hitting a deer at speed (no thank you.) Cristiano da Matta's career ended at that moment.

dave carver said:

You can find animals getting hit at high speed by racecars and exploding, literally. The mess when an Indy car hits a rabbit is indescribable. I'm just glad I was never the guy tasked to clean that mess up

Click to expand...

Look up what happened to a bird when Randy Johnson threw a baseball. Going to make a big mess.

I remember reading the accident report about John Denver's airplane crash. They found bird feathers in the wreckage and weren't sure if he had hit a bird. They then realized that his seat cushion was filled with feathers that had leaked out. The had to go through all of the feathers to figure out if they are were all from the seat cushion, or whether there was indeed a bird strike in addition to the cushion feathers.

Been a firefighter for 30+ years, seen all manor of animal strikes. The oddest one was the possum that caused a Jeep to roll over, right into a creek. Kid you not, mile lane in Middletown, CT. the creek was about 3 feel longer the the SUV, and it caught fire and burnt...There were witnesses that confirmed the entire event....

I wish I could make that up!!!

g zilla said:

Look up what happened to a bird when Randy Johnson threw a baseball. Going to make a big mess.

Click to expand...

I had to look that one up...

I used to fly RC planes and one time I was chasing a buzzard around the sky to see if I could maybe chew his tail feathers off, and one of the older, wiser gentleman that was there, told me how he clipped a buzzard one time and it completely destroyed his plane. I never chased anymore buzzards.

All I've got is a buddy of mine hit a bird with a '98 Saturn SL2 in such a way it through the gap between the hood and the headlight panel, and ended up on the exhaust manifold. No splat, but it did cook...