Do you check for bullet holes in your preflight?

Bill said:
Makes for good video...
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That and what makes aviation so expensive. 75% of the price of the things are CYA even though common sense dictates it will work.
 
GaryM said:
There is a trap field in north Jersey about two miles from KCDW. We get a fair bit of traffic over the field. The aircraft are out of shotgun range by a factor of 20X, I'd imagine, so no safety conflict at all. It's just jarring to see aircraft out over the trap houses.
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Ours is 2000' from the threshold, 400' offset. But at least they're firing away from final, right?
 
I find it interesting how many airports have gun ranges in very close proximity, both actual ranges and certain "neighborhoods". My old hometown airport was in that kind of neighborhood, and a friend and mentor of mine found bullet holes in the back of his hangar one day form someone target practicing...we assume. One round penetrated a nice new roll of aluminum skin he had purchased for a project. Another grazed the lift strut on a Citabria or Champ he had, putting a crease in it that made it unairworthy.
 
The first part of the video was him taking stock of the situation. Still, it was gripping.
 
They found a bullet hole, maybe even the bullet, in the top of a Hawker 800 I was flying at the time. The speculation that it (the bullet) was on the way down and didn't hit with too much force. Didn't know when it happened either. Could have been there for a long time.

People also told me that hunters would shoot at the airplane when I was doing mapping during hunting season. Didn't ever find evidence, though.
 
In the way back, a friend in high school was struck by a bullet that someone shot in the air. He was lucky that it “only” hit his shoulder/arm and needed a few hours surgery and months of recovery. A few inches the other way and it would have been very different outcome.

moral of the story. Don’t be a dumb ass and shoot your gun in the air.
 
It’s frightening how many people have personal experience with this.
 
I used to fly fire patrol in West Virginia. The ground was owned by the state, but the trees were owned by lumber companies who did not want to see the trees burn.

I learned to ignore small columns of smoke coming up through the trees. If I needed to take a look I would do a low level, high speed pass (as high speed as a 182 will do) to minimize time over the suspect area.

I was never worried about being shot at.

Probably more than one old timer was ****ed at me for calling in the fire bombers on their mash operation..:lol:
 
My question is how a round came from above. Someone had to be shooting down at him. Am I the only one who finds this odd?
 
6t6 said:
My question is how a round came from above. Someone had to be shooting down at him. Am I the only one who finds this odd?
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He claims in the video that someone fired in the air and the bullet came back down. I find it hard to believe that the terminal velocity of a typical bullet to be enough to penetrate the skin though.
 
Sac Arrow said:
He claims in the video that someone fired in the air and the bullet came back down. I find it hard to believe that the terminal velocity of a typical bullet to be enough to penetrate the skin though.
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Myth busters actually did a show on this. Not on aircraft, but bullet trajectory.
 
Tantalum said:
Interesting.. who was shooting at you?
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Unspecified federal law enforcement types used to ride along with us for "interagency fam flights". They would ask us to fly low over certain remote locations within the national wilderness areas. We think it might have happened then. I supposed who ever was at those "locations didn't want us there. But, what do I know?
 
Sac Arrow said:
He claims in the video that someone fired in the air and the bullet came back down. I find it hard to believe that the terminal velocity of a typical bullet to be enough to penetrate the skin though.
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We have a couple of large (million plus square foot) manufacturing/warehousing facilities in NW GA. It isn't uncommon to find a bullet hole or two (or a bullet just poking through the steel decking) a couple of times a year. "Hey, why is there a pinpoint of light shining through the roof?"

Presumably, it is all about the trajectory of the bullet. I assume the ones we notice on the roofs didn't come down vertically.
 
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BrianNC said:
And?
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It was which had more impact, shooting straight up and the bullet coming straight down, or shooting at an elevated angle, and the impact when it landed.

IIRC, the firing at an angle did more damage than firing straight up.
 
I remember reading once that Goodyear had to regularly patch bullet holes in their blimps. Just too tempting a target, I guess (and hard to miss).

I also read once about an Army test of small arms fired straight up. They would tumble on the way down, so they wouldn't come down fast enough to cause much damage. Bullets fired up on an angle are another story.
 
I found that tragic, a beautiful plane scarred up by some moron. 6K down the drain and no telling how much lost revenue.
 
Dana said:
I also read once about an Army test of small arms fired straight up. They would tumble on the way down, so they wouldn't come down fast enough to cause much damage. Bullets fired up on an angle are another story.
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That was me. A lot of beer was involved.
 
6t6 said:
My question is how a round came from above. Someone had to be shooting down at him. Am I the only one who finds this odd?
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Our Army Airfield is surrounded by housing areas and one year after the usual Independence Day celebrations, there were several helicopters with bullet holes in the top of their fuselage...

I wish I could find the photo of my friend's Citabria with the arrow stuck in the left wing. I couldn't find it on the interwebs, so I guess it will never be seen...
 
Seems that a flush patch would be more fitting for this class of aircraft. Proximity to antenna May have something to do with the choice of repair. Flush rivets would be used, of course.
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Zeldman said:
It is a wonder any of us survived our childhood.
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The trick is to not be a complete idiot. The current generation or two of TikTokers and YouTubers could figure out a way to fatally injure themselves with freaking Hula-Hoops, I swear. I suppose they probably have ambulances standing by at horseshoe and cornhole games now.
 
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