A follow up on my previous incident report.

The pilot was spotted by the launch crew in the south end of the field at Quest
Air approaching above the trees for the bomb out zone just to the east of the
launch zone. Then they lost track of him.

The pilot decided that he wasn't going to make it to the zone (there is plenty
of open field just south of the designated zone) turned south and headed for an
open field south of the tree line on the south end of the air field. Flying low
over the trees on the down wind leg he startled a large bird, likely an owl,
which flew up and hit him.

The owl's wing hit his helmet and momentarily knocked the pilot out. The owl's
body hit the pilot's wrist breaking it and the downtube bending it. The pilot
regained consciousness, turned the glider back into the wind but crashed on
landing in his planned landing zone, breaking his arm (the other one, not the
one with the broken wrist), cracking ribs and bruising his lung.

Surgery Wednesday. He should be back at Quest on Thursday. Cast on wrist, no
cast on arm, which has a metal plate.

We rarely fly so low over trees except perhaps on the very final part of an
approach, so it would be unusual for us to disturb a large bird.