Are gliders susceptible to bird strikes? Gliders don't travel at the high speeds that make bird strikes so devastating in airliners. However, they are also smaller, lighter and softer, and can still move pretty swiftly.

Are they also vulnerable to bird strikes? What happens when a large bird collides with a glider?
Gliders, as every other aircraft, are susceptible to bird strikes. This is a detached glider's tail after hitting a 10 kg vulture:




  The  accident  was  caused  when  the  crew  lost  control  of  the  airplane  following  the  loss
  of a part of the tail assembly after the vertical stabilizer on the airplane struck a griffon
  vulture head-on.


Some countries are more susceptible to this kind of accidents than others. In Spain, which has a large population of vultures, I routinely hear about fatal accidents due to bird strikes.