105mph collision: S3 1, Wood Pigeon 0...

[RacingTeatray]

Am hugely impressed with the strength of the windscreen on my S3!

Went on a trackday at Bedford Autodrome on Monday and a large wood pigeon flew straight into the centre of my windscreen when I was doing 105mph down the back straight. Saw it sitting by the side of the track and just had enough time to think "oh sh*t" before it flapped up in front of me. Fortunately (and somewhat to the amazement of both me and the racing instructor sitting next to me) there was just a very loud bang and a very large and icky smear of entrails, feathers and a weird white powder (vaporised pigeon dust?) on the glass.

There's not even a hairline crack which is really quite something given it was not a small bird and we were going very very fast.

I'm actually lucky it hit the windscreen as it would have made a serious mess of a headlight or grille.

As it is there's no damage to the car at all!

 

[benk]

White powder will be dust from the wings - the silly buggers often leave a perfect "mid-flight" wing pattern when they slam into office windows.
The dust helps prevent mites I think.
(Oooh, listen to the ornithologist all of a sudden).

I think if the windscreen was angled more steeply you'd have had a problem - they are quite nice and shallow on the A3/S3

 

[ianhg]

my windscreen didnt survive a visit to the stealers! you lucky git, ive had two bird strikes in the S3 , ive seen a few at 300mph to and they are nasty

 

[RacingTeatray]

Ah - well this one hadn't preened lately 'cause it had a whole lot of dust - car was covered in it!

300mph? What's that in? A jet fighter?

I recall my father saying the Fleet Air Arm used to employ a falcon at Lossiemouth to clear the runway of seagulls before going on practice missions because of repeated trouble with birdstrikes. Apparently the Navy gave it an official rank and rations!

 

[imported_gek]

I got hit by a clump of mud containing a cluster bomb of pebbles the other week on the motorway.
It flew off the back of a wagon.
Made a nice collection of marks on the windscreen, but no crack.

I've been hit loads of times now, and some of them sound REALLY hard, but no crack yet.

Very impressed with how much punishment the screen can take.

Not like on my VR6 when I was changing the wiper blade. Didn't retract the arm all the way after I had removed the blade, and down it came onto the windscreen, making a nice crack /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[imported_Nigma]

"Fortunately (and somewhat to the amazement of both me and the racing instructor sitting next to me) there was just a very loud bang and a very large and icky smear of entrails, feathers and a weird white powder (vaporised pigeon dust?) on the glass. "

Not so fortunate for the pigeon hey? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Maybe it should have looked before it crossed.

 

[Khufu]

pfft, I got a branch through mine and I was only going at 10-15mph - not sure the speed of the branch that had been blown of the tree in very high winds.

 

[MingBluS3]

I hit a pigeon too last night, only doing about 50 and clipped it's ****, puff of feathers and no sight of the bird, i think it got away with it.

No damage to the car or screen, little bit of dust lol

 

[pwnorman]

I hit a crow a while ago whilst doing 95 the ****** thing decided to take off straight into the front of me hiting the top of the grill edge of the bonet and then then windscreen as you could well imagine there wasnt much of the dam thing left and it only mad a small mark on grill and a small stone chip mark on th edge of the bonet,had a problem seeing though the whole windscreen was coverd in blood and guts,the wipers dont clean it off to well either and the smell made me feel sick but the worst was to come got home and washed car straight away still wanting to barf at the smell,open up the bonet to find blood,guts and bits of bones covering the whole engine bay dam birds.

 

[GregC]

Misread this as I hit a cow...was much funnier /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/lol.gif

Greg

 

[The Slug]

someone did hit a cow just outside of Hinkley, that was funny, not for the cow of course, guy thought he was seeing things cause he had a drink!?!? lol, stupid bloke, got done of course

 

[Amchlolor]

I hit an uninsured woman driving a Porsche 911 turbo,doing about 80mph on a motorbike...

That made a mess.

Of me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[Cupramax]

[ QUOTE ]
I hit an uninsured woman driving a Porsche 911

[/ QUOTE ]

Was she a cow??? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh_2.gif

 

[RacingTeatray]

I did biology at Uni and one day we had to do dissection classes. We were shown into a lab full of dead wild animals like rabbits, foxes, pheasants, owls and what-have-you and told not to worry about the source of the animals because they were all road-kill collected from the local country lanes. So far so good.

Until we spotted the ostrich lying there on one on the benches.

Ostriches? Roadkill? Yeah well maybe in the Serengeti but not exactly what you'd expect in Fife! Imagine your surprise if a ****** great black and white 7ft bird legged it out in front of your car on a country lane at night!?!

 

[benk]

I have heard that birds often step into traffic, especially after a gut-full of Diamond White or Hooch. Happens a lot in town centres.

 

[Amchlolor]

[ QUOTE ]

Until we spotted the ostrich lying there on one on the benches.

Ostriches? Roadkill? Yeah well maybe in the Serengeti but not exactly what you'd expect in Fife! Imagine your surprise if a ****** great black and white 7ft bird legged it out in front of your car on a country lane at night!?!

[/ QUOTE ]

We,in Aberdeen,have an Ostrich farm right next to a very popular road with bikers and car drivers (the Stonehaven to Peterculter road,if you know the area).

I haven't seen any of the birds themselves wandering on the road,but you have to watch for people slamming on the brakes to look at the damn things.

Lovely steaks though.