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Watch What Happens When A Drone Slams Into An Airplane Wing (sacbee.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed writes:
Researchers at the University of Dayton Research Institute [Impact Physics Lab] have shown in a video what can happen when a high-mass, consumer-level drone strikes the wing of an aircraft. They provide visual evidence of the damage a 2.1-pound DJI Phantom 2 videography quadcopter would have upon the wing of a Mooney M20, a small, private aircraft. It is not difficult to extrapolate the effects upon an airliner in a similar situation. "We wanted to help the aviation community and the drone industry understand the dangers that even recreational drones can pose to manned aircraft before a significant event occurs," said Kevin Poormon of UDRI.
The video -- titled "Risk in the Sky?" -- simulates a collision at 238 mph in which the drone tears open the wing's leading edge.
"While the quadcopter broke apart, its energy and mass hung together to create significant damage to the wing," said Kevin Poormon, group leader for impact physics at UDRI.
The video -- titled "Risk in the Sky?" -- simulates a collision at 238 mph in which the drone tears open the wing's leading edge.
"While the quadcopter broke apart, its energy and mass hung together to create significant damage to the wing," said Kevin Poormon, group leader for impact physics at UDRI.
A Mooney M20 has a top speed of 165 knots and a typical cruising speed of around 130. If this is intended to provide facts why not show the results of a collision at 100, 130, or 165... nah, letâ(TM)s show almost 250 mph so we can hype the shit out of this and win the argument with people who donâ(TM)t actually know or understand what they are seeing. Maybe for the next test slam a drone into a perfectly perpendicular windshield at 1200 mph, thatâ(TM)ll really scare some folks into supporting more regulations.
Full disclosure: I am a pilot with hundreds of hours of experience. I also fly RC and build my own self piloting aircraft. I have some minor/small concerns about midair collisions with typical consumer drones, but I am far more worried about this power grab by the FAA and the long term impact it will have.
The destruction of Columbia was caused (as anyone actually reading the wikipedia entry you so thoughtfully linked will see) by reentry stress and super-heated plasma burning through a relatively small flaw in the heat shield. The cause of that damage was indeed foam, but trying to compare this to a drone strike on an aircraft traveling an order of magnitude slower and not experiencing reentry stress is just as much an exercise in sensationalism as the video currently in question is.
Also, it should be noted, since you place such an emphasis on the damaging item being foam (in a clear attempt to show that a seemingly dismissive substance can be extremely dangerous) that the kind of "foam" which caused the heat shield damage on Columbia was essentially the perfect item to cause the maximum damage. It was extremely strong foam, and very light. It's lower density meant that the air was able to decelerate it greatly causing a much higher velocity collision than something more dense would have, and its strength meant that it maintained cohesion long enough to cause damage.
And finally, your dismissive use of age and the assumption that the superior knowledge of someone older must surely validate your rather spurious comparison is a pretty great example, itself, of sophistry. Well done.
Tell that to Sully