YES! we do need birds in FSX, for a variety of reasons...There aren't many major airports around the world (and quite a few small ones too) that don't have bird scaring vehicles and other bird scaring systems. They can be a major hazard to aircraft.As bizarre as it sounds, many aircraft manufacturers have special cannons which can fire chickens and turkeys at various bits of their aeroplanes when they are testing them, windscreens in particular (some people think this is an urban myth, but I have several photographs of Fairchild/Republic testing an A-10 Thunderbolt II in exactly this way). Hitting a flock of birds can smash your windsreen, which is one of several reasons why many aircraft have a DV (Direct Vision) panel in the canopy which you can knock out, or slide open. Look at a Spitfire's canopy and you will see one for example. It's also one of the reasons why you rarely see closely grouped engines on modern aircraft like you used to (on the DeHavilland Comet for example). Getting your Pratt and Whitneys full of Albatross could conceivably bring down your 747 if it knocked out three or four of them. Lots of people have been killed by this kind of thing and it's been estimated by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration that it costs around 600 million dollars a year in damage.Check out more info on bird strikes at the link below (warning: some of the pictures are a bit grim):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strikeI look for birds all the time when flying gliders in real life as they can help pinpoint thermals, which do not have big green circles around them in real life :-) And it is actually quite cool to circle in a thermal with a bird in tight formation with you, right outside the cockpit, as it gives you a look at how they move their wings to steer which few people get to see. You can regard yourself as a good glider pilot if you ever see a bird leave the thermal it is in and join you in the one you are in, I was really flattered the first time this ever happened to me, and it really made me smile :-)If you watch a helicopter take off from grass, you will invariably see a group of birds land where it has been. This is because the vibrations from the chopper feel like a mole burrowing through the ground to earthworms, which makes them go to the surface, and the birds know this, so land to feed on them.There have been several examples in aviation history of pilots using natural phenomenon to assist them in navigation, from the example of glider pilots finding thermals, to pilots lost over water following the direction in which some birds were flying. Birds usually land into the wind, like aircraft should do, and this could help you if you had to force-land and had no visul references as to the wind direction (such as smoke, moving cloud shadows on the land, grass movement trees bending and all the other usual suspects). Having once made a downwind forced landing, I can assure you that they are a lot longer than you'd generally like them to be :-)We need more birds in FSX if we really want it to be 'as real as it gets'.

Chock, I have to say I have really enjoyed some of your posts recently with all of the aviation factoids mixed in with your own personal experiences. You should write a weekly column. :) Keep them coming!

I agree. Birds and other animals are not essential I guess but then again neither are cars, boats, cars etc buzzing around airports and so on. Just something nice to see from time to time.Anyone else seen this?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQD4xs_M3rQAndrew

Yup, that little video one of the better FSX mickey takes, along with the Big Lebowski and a really bad dude ones. And although it's a trifle long-winded, I did laugh a lot at it.By the way, thanks for the nice comment back up higher on this thread :-) I'm full of largely useless facts like that :-)I did in fact at one point write reviews for AVSIM (had to give it up when my wife became ill) and also worked as a writer for a daily newspaper (still do occasionally), which probably accounts for the useless facts cluttering up my brain.

>Here is the Grizzly bear I came across in the mountains of>FSX. I zoomed in with the camera and snapped a shot.>>It was just strolling along causally, probably looking for>food. (Good thing I was safe inside the airplane!! :-boom )>>> That's in a mission, isn't it?

>That's in a mission, isn't it?>Yes, it's in the "Introduction to Mountain Flying" mission. You'll find this bear wandering around in front of the runway at the destination airport.

I've seen a herd of elephants stampeding down the centre of Glasgow Scotland! And I wasn't on a mission.

Maybe they escaped from the local zoo! :-lol

>I agree. Birds and other animals are not essential I guess>but then again neither are cars, boats, cars etc buzzing>around airports and so on. Just something nice to see from>time to time.>>Anyone else seen this?>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQD4xs_M3rQ>>Andrew:-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol Andr

Chock,Will you please quit confusing the troops with RL facts. It's difficult to maintain a contentious posture while learning anything worthwhile.Many thanks for the diversion.JackD

I see birds and have quite a few close calls just about everytime I fly where I live (except in the winter). There will frequently be warnings for birds on the local atis and tower will often point out flocks. I wish fsx had a slider like it does for ai traffic for different wildlife so we could populate and customize it right to our liking.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

>All we need to figure out is.... how to put birds in places we>need them.>I think someone just uploaded a program to do just that in the file library the other day.I didn't have time to look at it though.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Don't they use some sort of foam bullet that is close to the same density as chickens now? I know they used to use real frozen chickens, but I think I saw on TV where they now use something that is close but cheaper and less messy lol.

Me, too, I regularly see birds when I fly out of KASH in Cessnas and Pipers. I nearly hit one once on takeoff on the turn into the crosswind leg. I agree that you probably won't notice them from jets, though.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

I dunno. In my experience, they were still using frozen chicken's at Pratt & Whitney about 8-10 years ago. Watching a movie and simulation of it is very cool! Kind of like a slow motion video of high g's on the face :)Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180