Slashdot Mirror
Jet Strikes Drone Near Heathrow Airport (marketwatch.com)
smooth wombat writes: "A British Airways flight Sunday appears to have collided with a drone on a flight bound for London's busy Heathrow Airport in what may be the first such incident involving a major airline," according to MarketWatch. "The flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Heathrow, Europe's busiest hub, is believed to have struck a drone, the London Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The plane landed safely following the incident, which occurred around 12:50 p.m. local time. 'It was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don't understand the risks and the rules,' said BALPA flight safety specialist Steve Landells... 'Much more education of drone users and enforcement of the rules is needed to ensure our skies remain safe from this threat'."
"We don't worry about the dangers of birds"
Excuse me?
Civil aviation spends millions trying to avoid birds near the major airports.
"perhaps it should actually show that small drones that weigh a few pounds really aren't more dangerous to aircraft than birds."
Except that:
1) We know (and act upon) birds *are* quite dangerous to aircraft.
2) We know drones have a distintive characteristic that may make them more dangerous: they have an intelligent will backing them up (i.e.: adding explosives and/or the ability to crash on purpose).
Yes. The battery is alot more dense than a bird. If a fan blade is even chipped, it can crack and splinter, in which case the entire engine breaks apart internally. There's a recent model simulating this floating around, and it shows the engine fan blades disintegrating in less than one revolution after impact.
You don't put a grill over the engine, because all that would do with a large birdstrike is add bits of metal into the mass of bird going into the engine.
Airports can, and do, put a huge amount of effort into clearing birds from around their runways, due to the risks that birdstrike presents during takeoff and landing. To quote from one of Heathrow Airport's own documents:
Birds can present a safety risk if they become caught in aircraft engines. Heathrowâ(TM)s bird hazard management team aim to make the airport as unappealing as possible for birds through habitat management, disturbing birds using distress noises, letting off flares and, as a last resort, through culling.
Bird populations can even influence the siting of airports. When a major recent UK study ruled out the construction of a new airport in the Thames Estuary (to the east of the capital), the scale of the bird-management that would be necessary was one of several reasons cited:
The operational risk to the airport posed by birdstrike could increase the scale of compensatory habitat required as it would require it to be sited further away, ideally to a minimum of 20km away from the site, and certainly outside of the 13km bird safeguarding circle, increasing the uncertainty as to its suitability as replacement for the habitat lost. It may also necessitate additional mitigation measures to be put in place. If any remaining bird habitats within the 13km safeguarding circle (that is those not already displaced by the airport's direct impact) were considered to pose an operational safety risk additional mitigation measures would be needed and it may ultimately be necessary to remove those habitats, increasing further the environmental impact and cost of compensation.
If a fan blade is even chipped
Small chips are routinely repaired during engine overhauls by "blending"; filing and sanding away the sharp corners caused by FOD that accumulates in in-service engines. There are manufacturer guidelines covering the location and size of damage may be repaired through blending, and tool manufacturers sell specialized blending tools. Your claim that "even chipped" blades will disintegrate an engine is bogus. It is impossible to operate a gas turbine in real-world conditions without accumulating small "chips" in compressor and turbine blades and stators.
Please don't make stuff up to amplify concerns about drones, or anything else for that matter.
Totally wrong. Pilots regularly train for engine failures at all stages of takeoff, and unless spectacularly mishandled, does NOT lead to the plane crashing.
Also, losing an engine in cruise does NOT cause the a/c to start losing altitude quickly. Sure, you'll have to drift down to a single engine cruise altitude but it's not nearly as harsh as the poster seems to think.