Posted on Aug 5, 2015
SSgt Aircraft Structural Maintenance
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What is the weirdest damage you have seen or, most extensive repair you've had to perform?
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Responses: 23
MSgt Dwyane Watson
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I was stationed at Travis in the 90's and 1 of our C-141's had a bird strike. Sometimes all you see is a little blood and a smear, but this time it looked like a Pterodactyl hit the #3 leading edge! Part of a leg and talon was left...this was the biggest talon I had ever seen, we think a California condor took out the pylon.We had to replace most of the leading edge ribs and all the skin. Wow, it was a big bird.
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MSgt J D McKee
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This one is from long ago memory and maybe not the whole story at the time, either. I was on a Crash crew at the Eglin AFB fire department main station. We responded to an aircraft emergency and found an F15 with a small hole in the underside and a metal rail hanging out of another hole of about the same size, and a small dent in the same general area. Story we got was that two F15's were dogfighting over the gulf and one ejected into the bottom of the other one. Would have been 80 or 81. If someone else has a better memory or the whole story I'd like to hear it, never did that I remember.

Other than that, at RAF Upper Heyford in the early '70s I saw an F111 which had hit, I think it was, a goose. It did a truly amazing amount of damage to the very thick and strong canopy, but i think the nav or pilot whichever, lived and just had a little damage.
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CCMSgt Aircraft Structural Maintenance
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Weapons was lowering a drum in the F16 and it caused major damage to the upper intake. Plus same time QA decided to run a crash axe through the wing destyoing two wing spars and skin. We pulled a stop sign off the road and slapped some saaalant and speed rape on it and told then to fly it.
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