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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'."
There has been no evidence presented that it hit a drone. Just speculation at this point
Of course I get all my aerospace news from MarketWatch... However, other sources suggest the pilots saw it bounce off the nose:
After landing, the pilot reported an object - believed to be a drone - had struck the front of the Airbus A320.
As someone who works at a major Air Force bace that flies "heavies", I can tell you that often there is no physical damage and the only way to confirm a "bird strike" is the blood left behind, and small drones do not have blood.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Most commercial airliners have what most people would call high landing speeds. About 150 to 160mph
Every time I hear that a pilot saw a drone on approach, I think: How? Maybe he saw something. A plastic bag, a large bird. At that speed, it isn't easy to see a lot of details on a small object. Maybe it was a drone. Those small jet front windshields don't give great views, and they aren't always perfectly clean.
Human eye's aren't perfect.
I challenge you to get a good look at a drone while driving a car at 160 mph.
The CE logo is protected, and there are fines for using it withoutwithout certification. So instead they use one that is very similar: In the proper one the circle described by the C intersects the one described by the E such that the outlines (if they were present) would overlap exactly.
Anything that has the other logo is colloquially known as Chinese Export.
What's really dumb is the general public is largely ignorant about the difference. If your house burns down due to a faulty CE certified device you can have redress. If your house burns down due to a faulty Chinese Export, well it was uncertified so tough shit.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Wow you would think the PHD level engineers that have been designing jet engines for decades would have thought of that ... and maybe if it was so easy, they would have done it by now ?
There's only about a billion reasons it wouldn't work, and one of the first that springs to mind is that jet engines are sucking in air - at a huge speed (in many cases several times the speed of sound)... you stick a grill in there, you are reducing the possible airflow. That grill will have to be made of something incredibly (probably impossible) strong just to prevent it getting sucked in itself (seriously - you have no idea the force a jet engine generates -it's not like an air-conditioner - those things put out hundreds of KILONewtons in thrust). And if you actually build your super-grill, you will hugely weaken the engine because it will not be able to get air in as fast. Even most basic grill that actually does something useful will be at least a 30% reduction in engine power (50% is more likely for anything strong enough to do the job)... so now you'll need twice as many engines. Which means twice the fuel, and of course you've greatly increased the weight of the aircraft so you have to increase the wing-size massively to compensate... but that means you have to go *faster* to be able to generate enough lift which means you need more engines...
They don't call it the tyranny of the rocket equation for nothing.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Don't forget..
Once being an airline pilot was a premier occupation. Pay was large, work was easy, you stayed in the best hotels and were tested like royalty.
Unfortunately that was a long time ago. These days it borders on bus driving. Long hours, average pay, and fast eroding working conditions.
Is it any surprise they grab at any chance to feel more important? Grab a little media attention and make people sit up and take notice again?
Sad but true.
Lightning strikes are far worse than laser pointers.. And a goose will do as much damage as any non commercial drone.. But it's attention they really want. To be important and respected again.
Sad.
A soft squishy bird yes, but they don't ingestion test with soft squishy birds, but rather solid frozen birds.
Are you sure?