Not harmless when you are flying an H-60, on goggles, at night over Jolo island.

Those guys do not show up very well at all on goggles. One second you are cruising over the canopy, the next you are looking for an emergency landing, because you just flew through a bunch, hit one, and are afraid you might have sucked him down an engine.

Then you are crawling around dense, unfamiliar undergrowth, trying to inspect the aircraft, while it is still pulling power, (because the ground isn’t level and we can’t trust it will support our weight). Praying to God the blood smear goes down and not in.

There was blood, no gore, and it was clear it hit the windscreen, but nothing to indicate anything went in the engine. Gauges were clean, so pilots pulled the seat cushions out of their butts, I said a prayer for the poor sky fox, and we went home.

In retrospect we were pretty safe. The H-60 engines are pretty good about not pulling in stuff. They don’t have the kind of suction the fixed wing jets do, big fan on top does a good job keeping the air clear too. Those bats are big. That worked in our favor.

We generally put a little more cushion between us and the canopy after that, but there were some elements that loved to take potshots at us, so it was not an easy balance to make.

Still feel bad about that poor bat.

Edit: I have to be honest and say I can’t really confirm it was even one of these really big ones, since I know there are more than one species of nocturnal fruit bats in the southern Philippines. The sentiment still applies though.