This photograph was published in r/shittyaskflyinga subreddit dedicated to asking dumb questions and giving dumb answers. In this case, the photograph is enough to make you wonder what is going on.
The title says:
Why all the wheel chocks? Strong winds?
The answers are, as expected, hilarious.
No_Mathematical2527 writes:
Prevents the porcupine from chewing the tires. Why do porcupines eat tires? Because they’re super #$@% dumb, that’s why.
Stupid #$@%ing brain dead porcupines. I had to walk 2 #$@%ing days to get out of there. And for what? What did he achieve?
The little #$@% ate my tires and immediately died about 20 feet away. Just a big #$@% you, I guess. Porcupines can #$@% right away. Stupid needle rat.
And the perfect answer babybasher1776
It’s your fault for using such delicious tires.
schenkzoola has a different theory.
Bird cages. Prevent the plane from escaping.
But garbagekr implies that it is an anti-theft device:
Flying in Romania will be like…
Rooster-vegetables-50 could be romanian:
We can still steal your accessory.
rover_G He sounds a little embarrassed:
Chastity cages for… you know…
AND theogmichaelscott You may be a little confused:
Fitting cages? My girlfriend asked me if I would put one on her. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
But redit-fan thinks the pilot is in trouble:
Unpaid parking tickets
StarzRout thinks the plane could be the one in trouble:
The mob just went to pour the cement before throwing this sucker into the river.
Finally, I believe jjs3_1 You have the right to it:
That’s a Cessna; They have to be caged or they sneak out and get drunk!
Of course, I couldn’t rest until I had traced the image back to its source. It was originally published in 2023 by Uretsky Aviation, a Facebook page and Instagram account of B767 aviation pilot and photographer Brian Uretsky, who explained that he had received it from South African aviation enthusiast raegen.ed.
If you want to submit your own photos by next Sunday, send me a message!
The person who took the photo is on LinkedIn as a commercial student pilot and flight dispatcher for a South African airline; Clearly, the local wildlife did not scare them away from aviation.
On Instagram, dave_o3 recognize the aircraft:
I flew this plane in South Africa, it is ZS-DGH. It is a fighter aircraft that is left overnight on unfenced airfields at Sabi Sands. That airfield is FAUS. The cages prevent hyenas from chewing on the brake cables. Apparently they find them tasty 🤤
So our main comment wasn’t far off, except that no one in South Africa seems all that concerned about porcupines. But I discovered that in the United States people actually do They wrap their cars in chicken wire to protect the tires from porcupines!
Those damn porcupines will eat anything:
The biggest surprise to me about the porcupines’ appetite was their love for tires and the plastic insulation that covered the wires. I heard many stories about hikers and hunters who went into the bush, leaving their trucks parked and alone for several days, while they ventured into the wilderness. Days later, when they returned, they tried unsuccessfully to start their trucks, only to discover that the porcupines had chewed through the vehicle’s cables or tires.
These events always ended in a very long and unexpected trip back to civilization for help.
I tried to find a case of porcupines causing damage to airplanes, but I only found this case in the NTSB database:
During a telephone interview with the NTSB investigator in charge on the morning of June 13, 1993, the pilot reported that he made several low passes over the lake to check the condition of the ice and that on one of the passes he caused one of the main landing gear tires to bounce off the ice. During the last 100 feet of the landing roll, the main landing gear tires began to gouge in the ice and the airplane began to sink. The pilot estimated that the plane was submerged in approximately 30 feet of water.
The lake in question is Porcupine Lake in Alaska, although it appears that the plane caused the damage.
helpforwildlife.org explains why this could affect cars but not airplanes:
Porcupines are attracted to anything salty. Therefore, road salt in winter can attract them to car parts and rubber, including brake lines, fuel lines, tires, half-axle boots, etc. Thoroughly wash or clean vehicles and parts to remove accumulated salt. If possible, keep vehicles in a garage or erect a temporary fence around the vehicles.
Although salt is often used on roads, it is No used on tracks, due to the corrosive effect of salt on aluminum. Instead, sand or de-icing chemicals are used to avoid the risk of damaging aircraft parts and engines.
In fact, Pittsburgh International Airport has a video on how they obtain sand for their winter operations:
Of course, this means that airplanes are much less tasty than cars, at least if you’re a porcupine.
Hyenas, on the other hand, are known for chewing rubber, just like dogs chew shoes. jc717 posted a photo of thorns used to protect a plane.
Once upon a time in a faraway place called Limpopo Lipadi, a Cessna 210 and its pilot arrived. Two American guests were on their first trip to Africa and the next morning had an early flight to another faraway place.
After a night of chatting around the fire and very excited passengers, it was soon dawn.
A bumpy ride to the runway and some more lively chats passed before we finally arrived, only to turn the two happy Americans into two very angry Americans.
The two tires of the main gear were completely destroyed and the culprit’s footprints were still fresh in the sand. Hyenas are idiots.
I’m bad at telling stories. But there it is.
Which just goes to show that porcupines were unfairly maligned in the original comment! As an apology to any porcupine interested in aviation who may be offended by being called a needle rat, I would like to share the story of the Mackenzie porcupine.
The story begins with a porcupine discovering the wreckage of an airplane near Mackenzie, in northern British Columbia, Canada. She thought she already had a cozy new house and moved in, nibbling on the seats and feeling, overall, pretty happy with herself.
Unfortunately for Mackenzie, the accident was recent. To her shock and horror, a helicopter arrived and transported the wrecked plane from the remote location with her on board. The planes and porcupine were then transported by boat and trailer to a salvage yard more than 800 kilometers away. At the shipyard, workers discovered the porcupine hiding under the pilot’s seat and called the Inland Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Canada.
There will never be a dull moment at Interior Wildlife!
We were asked to remove a young female porcupine from the wreckage of an airplane. He had hitchhiked during the wreck recovery and was accidentally transported by helicopter, boat and trailer from Mackenzie to Kelowna!
Unlike groundhogs, which are known to hitchhike in British Columbia, a “porcupine on a plane” was a different displacement story.
This adventurous young animal was hiding under the pilot’s seat and began to poke its head out when workers from a local wreck recovery company went to unload the remains from its flatbed trailer in Kelowna.
We generally do not have enough resources to capture wild animals ourselves; Instead, we request that you contact us before giving instructions on how and when the seeker can safely capture/trap and transport wildlife in need. In this case, however, the animal was hundreds of miles from home, and the possibility of losing it among a pile of airplane parts in an industrial yard, where it would become disoriented, find nothing to eat, and crawl toward another machine or vehicle, was quite real, the workers feared. He was very scared and made no attempt to come out of his hiding place for the last 3 days. They tried to convince and lure him once they realized he was a blind passenger, but to no avail. That’s when the Interior Wildlife team was called for help. With the help of our backup vet, we lightly sedated the porcupine using an intramuscular injection in the rear (the only place we could reach was through the window of the small plane). We then gently pulled it out by the front arms a few minutes later, with no quills falling out. Safe for the humans involved and the animal itself.
A friendly pilot volunteered to fly her back to Mackenzie BC in a borrowed Cessna 172 for the porcupine’s return trip. Gasoline costs were covered by donations from the community. said the pilot social networks that the Cessna had better range than his plane and after He said the 2,000-kilometer round trip was the longest day of flying he had ever had. Once back at the beginning, wildlife workers released her safely into the forest:
But much more interesting, I thought, was this Instagram post from the pilot with a video of the flight. Unfortunately, Instagram embeds don’t always work well, so I’ll ask you to click to check this one out on insta by bigtotherescue.
I especially love how the pilot tells the controller that he has valuable cargo on board.
I’m not sure how Friday night came when all I was doing was reading a dumb post on Reddit, but sometimes that’s how it happens. I hope you enjoyed going down this rabbit hole with me!
