First stage check with the chief, 20hr student, he told me to land through a flock of birds

Posted by Squawk_0877@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 269 comments

So I was a 20hr student doing my first stage check, the chief himself sat in the right seat. Big stakes for me, I was nervous as hell.

Funny side note, normally I ran a GoPro every lesson, not exactly approved, I always told my CFIs id cleared it with management, nobody ever bothered to check. Chief shows up that morning, I leave the GoPro in the bag because hes the guy I had been lying about. Shouldve been my first clue the universe was setting something up.

We start doing patterns, first lap, im on short final right around sunrise, and right where im supposed to flare there is a flock of huge birds just sitting there, maybe ten of them, big ones.

Im looking at this thinking ok they'll scatter, they have ears, they can hear an engine, plus the chief is sitting right there, thousands of hours, if this is bad he will say something.

I turn to him and ask go around? because at this point we are maybe 50 ft and the birds are doing absolutely nothing. He calmly goes no, keep landing

Reader, the birds did not scatter.

I bowled a perfect strike, we skip the touch and go, call for an inspection, taxi off, shut down, I get out and start taking pictures of the carnage on my phone (attached).

Chief looks at the cowling, looks at the prop, looks at me, and goes "shame we didnt have a camera in there, that wouldve been some great footage."

Passed the stage check though.