Flying on a wing... and a prayer

GEESE were in the news recently for all the wrong reasons; the airliner that came down in the Hudson River flew into a flock of them.

The culprits were Canada geese, huge numbers of which frequent the eastern seaboard of the United States in winter. A big gander can be half the size of a swan, tipping the scales at 5.5kg, not the sort of creature a pilot wants to encounter during a critical manoeuvre.

Gay Byrne later told RTÉ’s Mooney Show that jet engines were tested by having dead chickens flung into them. The turbine blades pulverise the carcass but can’t deal with birds as big as Canada geese.