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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'."
If shooting them down is illegal then running them down with a 747 has to be illegal too.
Nullius in verba
There are lots of "common sense" things, especially in US manuals, such as don't iron clothes on your body or while taking a bath.
Obviously plenty of people need reminders.
What a moron. We have wait until an airliner crashes, then we do something, right? You'll notice that the thing was not sucked into an engine, and that the 747 was landing, not taking off. If both those criteria had been met then your post might read a little differently. You appear not to notice the research that has been conducted on bird strikes on large jets for many years. You also seem to be unaware of the unlucky passengers of light aircraft who have had large birds land in their laps, along with chunks of perspex and aluminium. The pilots are asking for more research, but you'd rather not find out because, hey, your rights trump everything and everyone.
Here's the thing though-
Every commercial plane is tested against strikes with fowl. Are they really going to tell me a drone is going to cause more damage that a chicken being shot through a cannon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun
I get you don't want airspace to be packed with drones, but is an occasional strike really worth all this handwringing?
It seems more they are in search of finding a reason to regulate than addressing any current problem.
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.
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 *
1) The first rule of DDD: drones cannot cause any problem ever in any situation.
2) The second rule of DDD: always defend drones as harmless no matter what the circumstance. For example if firefighters call off aerial retardant drops because drones are flying in the fire zone: the missed drops didn't make any difference and/or drones didn't pose any interference and the authorities should have just kept flying.
In the current post three of the major denial themes are stated.
1) It wasn't a drone.
2) If there was a drone, nothing happened.
3) If there was a drone interaction, there was no actual damage.
It's so simple even the dullest of Slashdot Pundits can execute it with ease.
BTW, I've actually participated in a project with the FAA addressing bird strike mitigation. They take any physical impact on a aircraft very seriously. It's not just birds, but any strike by FOD (Foreign Object Debris). That includes anything on a runway, like trash. At DFW airport in Texas, they have a problem with foxes who live in the airport and are stuck by aircraft. They collect and monitor the corpses, and have a burial location for their bodies. The FAA has records of rodent strikes, when their carcasses are found on runways. Anything hitting a aircraft is considered very significant. Saying that it's not important is just a pledge of allegiance to the DDD. A true blue cult member.
Why is Snark Required?
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.