Tower we are going to be in the Hudson

ol Bombero-JC wrote:
In keeping the thread "grounded" (so to speak).....

Besides birds into windshields - and things flying out of the back of pickups, flat-beds, etc. - here's one from when I was in the emergency business.

We get a call for a traffic accident on the (very) busy 405 Freeway in Orange County, CA

Find the LEO's and one vehicle (car) with a smashed front window on the Southbound side of the freeway.
Woman on the passenger side with moderate injuries.

No other vehicle around - so ask the Chippy if there's another vehicle involved - that somehow we've missed.

Ans.....
"The car was hit by a tire and wheel while traveling at about 65 mph".

Huh?
(Actually TWO vehicles were traveling at about 65mph "previously" - and then..... there was 3!)

The injured folks were traveling Southbound on the freeway.
A vehicle (car) on the other side of the freeway (Northbound) lost a wheel -at freeway speed- which bounced over the center divider and hit the on-coming Southbound car in the windshield.
(lots of near-miss witnesses).

Sure enough - there's a car about a 1/8 of a mile away on the shoulder of the Northbound side - with only a front brake drum on the pavement where the left front tire and wheel should be.
No injuries there. (Just maintenance issues?)

OK - so we got that part solved.......but we're scratching our heads wondering - - where is the (still) missing wheel???...:h

One of the guys points upwards..........
Yikes!
About 150 feet further down the road "impaled" on an *overhead* freeway sign is the errant tire and wheel!!

That wheel and tire had to have bounced about 30 feet *UP* to land "up there".

The folks on the "receiving end" were:
Unlucky - -or- - very lucky, as it could have been lots worse!


~

We have a corn field near the highway. While harvesting the corn one fall we once found a perfectly good Semi truck wheel out in the middle of the field. At least 30 yards from the road. There were no tracks leading to it. It must have bounced that far.

We kept it and put it on our semi the next time we had a flat.

In keeping the thread "grounded" (so to speak).....

Besides birds into windshields - and things flying out of the back of pickups, flat-beds, etc. - here's one from when I was in the emergency business.

We get a call for a traffic accident on the (very) busy 405 Freeway in Orange County, CA

Find the LEO's and one vehicle (car) with a smashed front window on the Southbound side of the freeway.
Woman on the passenger side with moderate injuries.

No other vehicle around - so ask the Chippy if there's another vehicle involved - that somehow we've missed.

Ans.....
"The car was hit by a tire and wheel while traveling at about 65 mph".

Huh?
(Actually TWO vehicles were traveling at about 65mph "previously" - and then..... there was 3!)

The injured folks were traveling Southbound on the freeway.
A vehicle (car) on the other side of the freeway (Northbound) lost a wheel -at freeway speed- which bounced over the center divider and hit the on-coming Southbound car in the windshield.
(lots of near-miss witnesses).

Sure enough - there's a car about a 1/8 of a mile away on the shoulder of the Northbound side - with only a front brake drum on the pavement where the left front tire and wheel should be.
No injuries there. (Just maintenance issues?)

OK - so we got that part solved.......but we're scratching our heads wondering - - where is the (still) missing wheel???...:h

One of the guys points upwards..........
Yikes!
About 150 feet further down the road "impaled" on an *overhead* freeway sign is the errant tire and wheel!!

That wheel and tire had to have bounced about 30 feet *UP* to land "up there".

The folks on the "receiving end" were:
Unlucky - -or- - very lucky, as it could have been lots worse!


~

I have a story from around 1987 that is not related to RVing.I was racing on a local bicycle team when this incident happened. One of the most experienced riders [and nicest guys you could ever meet] on the team crossed paths with a turkey in a race. It was a time trial held in the Pine Barrens here in South Jersey. In a time trial each racer leaves the start one minute after the previous racer. About 3/4 through the 25 mile course he had just passed one of the racers ahead of him when a turkey came flying out of the woods and broad sided him knocking him off of the bike. So some of us are at the finish line area and we begin to wonder where is Rich, he should have returned by now since he was one of the strongest racers in the region. Well the racer he passed comes over to us a tell us how Rich was wailed by a turkey and crashed [at about 32mph] right in front of him. So a little while after that Rich crosses the finish line covered in blood and with some serious road rash. He tells us he had no idea what happened all he saw was a black flash from his right and then he was sliding across the road. He was a great guy. Two years later he was killed while riding a bike home from work by a guy that the police suspected was reading a news paper while driving. That was before cell phones, now the roads are more dangerous with people texting ect.

I spent several years of my USAF career as a crew chief on F-111s. You haven't seen a bird strike until you've seen one that happened at over 600 knots...

You never know what will come through your windshield!

Don't follow to close!!!

Someone always has to mention losing control of body function. Insteresting

I know the feeling. I hit a turkey in the mountains of WV on 64 a few months ago in a work truck. The A pillar took the brunt of it, but then it tore the mirror off -- made it a little tough to change lanes till I found a truck stop and got something to replace it. You can see the feathers wedged in the side window track.

I'm so glad this story has a happy ending. (Well, except for the bird.)

I have an RV9A homebuilt airplane I built. A few years ago I had just left an airport after filling up with gas. I had leveled off and was trimmed out heading to my home base airport about 15 miles away, about 4 miles from the airport I had just left all of a sudden I heard a loud impact< had no idea what it was but looked at the canopy on the passengers side and saw a real mess of a bird of some kind. No telling what it would have sounded like if I had not had a headset on. Got lucky it didn't break the canopy, at 185 mph it splattered that bird pretty good. After landing trying to clean the canopy, that was the greasiest thing I had ever cleaned off a window.

I took a whole roll of duct tape but we made it from Titusville to Jacksonville today. Kind of scary watching the window "breathe" in and out as we drove at 60 MPH. It was only about 2 hours but Janet sat on the couch behind the drivers seat. She wanted no part of it!
We are now at Prevost and they have the windshield and will take care of that and a couple of other bus issues while we are here. Should be good as new here pretty soon.
We originally planned to stay at The Great Outdoors but it turns out they wanted $65/night plus tax for an overnight stop. Wish we had paid that ransom as the hit happened just past the exit and we would have saved $700!