Birdstrike during a Training Flight

This was my experience during my first flight on M346. The Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master is a military twin-engine transonic trainer aircraft, designed for the principal role of lead-in fighter trainer, in which capacity it is used to deliver pilot training for the latest generation of combat fighter aircraft. Powered by a pair of Honeywell F124 turbofan engines, it is capable of transonic flight without using an afterburner. Flying this aircraft after at least some simulators looks apparently very easy, the flight control system, incorporating a HOTAS design philosophy, is equipped with adjustable angle of attack and g-force limitations; when combined with its wide performance envelope. There is also a pilot activated recovery system is present which, when pressed, conducts an automatic recovery by returning the aircraft to a steady and level flight path.

I was really impressed positively by the overpower given by the 2 engines in clean configuration, the feeling during take was to lift off before the spool up of the engine, or just few seconds later. Incredible. Big effort for me was to force myself to not use the trim, because the landing gear up you have the autotrim and you don't need it anymore. 

Climb perfomance was incredibly higher that normal jet, 300kts IAS, engine around 80/82%, more than 30 degrees nose up (we were climbimg only up to FL200). I needed to recover with a roll of 180° to level off. I felt that the aircraft was to still climb on inverted flight, amazing.

During recovery phase we were on fingertip as wingman approaching to Initial when hit a bird with a speed over 300 kts. We realized after few seconds, I saw something grey with periferic vision and heard the shot on the canopy. For a moment I thought something was broken. Fortunately nothing to declare a real emergency, but I was able to see a big stain of blood over my head.

The strength of the impact on an airplane depends on the weight of the animal, the difference in speed and the direction of the impact. A low speed impact of a small bird can cause relatively minor or zero damage, while a high speed impact can cause considerable and even dangerous damage to the aircraft, so as to compromise the safety of those on board. We were at very high speed, just to give an example, for an equivalence, just think that the impact with a bird of 5 kg at 240 km / h (the speed of an airplane on landing) is equivalent to a weight of half a ton dropped from a height of 3 meters. 

We landed without other consequences, but in the end nothing can beat the first flight on a supersonic jet.