Small Aircraft; Low Wing; 1 Eng; Fixed Gear
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Flight Engineer; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Total 12500
Other / Unknown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Inflight Event / Encounter Bird / Animal
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; General Maintenance Action
Environment - Non Weather Related; Aircraft
Departed home field early afternoon. I performed a full pre-flight and no discrepancies were noted. I checked weather in the area for surrounding airport. Both departure and destination airfield were private and had no weather reporting capability. We were cruising at 3;500 FT en route to our first destination. I pointed out a small Muni to my wife in the passenger seat and told her that we were landing there on the way back for fuel. We were about 3 or 4 miles west of Runway XX at the Muni. About that time we heard a BANG and the aircraft started vibrating. I said 'we lost the engine' and then I looked at the engine instruments and saw that the Oil Pressure; Oil Temperature; EGT; and CHT were within limits. I had no idea what was wrong; but I figured that the engine was not operating normally and it was best to shut it down; so I secured the ignition and fuel valve. I attempted to have my wife dial the CTAF/UNICOM frequency for the Muni airport into the VHF radio; but she was unable to remember how to do that; and I had my hands full of airplane so I was focused on maneuvering to make the runway and unable to get the frequency in the radio to announce our emergency. I was pretty certain we could make the runway; but we were high and fast and needed to perform a couple 'S' turns to lose altitude in order to land within the first 1/3 of the runway. I cleared the runway and taxiways visually; and made an uneventful downwind landing on Runway XX at about 85 MPH; around 1;500 FT from the threshold. We made a high-speed turnoff at the next taxiway and managed to keep enough energy to stop on the parallel taxiway facing west. When the prop stopped windmilling; my wife said 'look at the prop' and I saw that around 5-6 inches was missing from one tip. She stated that she remembers seeing a dark object flash though the prop arc at the time we experienced the bang and ensuing vibration; which we believe was a bird since evidence of blood was later found on the prop. We pulled the aircraft clear of the taxiway; and walked to the FBO to request assistance towing the airplane to the ramp. Basically; this was a 'fly the airplane first' situation. My wife stated that the entire sequence of events occurred in less than two minutes. I was able to handle basic emergency shutdown procedures from memory; but had no time for complicated checklists; troubleshooting; or radio frequency changes. My biggest concern was that nobody knew we were landing on Runway XX at that I didn't have time to establish communications. Fortunately; there was no traffic at the time and 'see-and-avoid' worked.
An ERCO 415-D propeller struck a bird in flight; causing severe engine vibration as about 5-6 inches of the propeller came off. The pilot shut the engine down and landed safely at a nearby airport.