Reply to post: Re: 500g Drone vs 100 ton airliner

The most annoying British export since Piers Morgan: 'Drones' halt US airport flights

Lee D Silver badge

Re: 500g Drone vs 100 ton airliner

You know how that tiny little stone flicked up by the lorry in front can make a complete hole in a laminated windscreen designed to do nothing more than protect you from such thing, windscreens which are now *structural* components in cars, they are that strong?

Yeah, that's at, even at the worst case, a combined 140mph.

Now an ordinary commercial jet may take off at way over that speed, and thus the physics are equivalent at best, but likely much worse (even if it's hitting a "hovering" stable object, it's still the same, physics-wise). If a little stone is capable of shattering a windscreen, and little drone is also capable. A 10-20kg drone (like the type hinted at at being over London airports that time) can cause catastrophic damage in the same instance.

Have that drone flying towards you at a speed as well, even worse.

Hitting intakes, pitot tubes, engines, control surfaces, etc., even worse. If a tiniest part of that thing gets jammed in a control surface you can crash a plane into the ground, especially if it's just about to land or just taken off, the reaction times just don't allow for those kinds of failures.

There's a reason jet engines had dead chickens fired at them to test - even a bird strike can be serious. And while the plane may "survive", they certainly will cause untold damage. And that's a squishy bird, a thing you could wring its neck and break every bone with your bare hands.

Remember the Hudson River airplane?

"US Airways Flight 1549 was an Airbus A320 which, in the climbout after takeoff from New York City's LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, struck a flock of Canada geese just northeast of the George Washington Bridge and consequently lost all engine power. Unable to reach any airport, pilots Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles glided the plane to a ditching in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan."

How many birds out of a flock of geese did that take? I bet they didn't hit them all, so not a lot. And worse because it was on take-off where you are low, fast, and damaged control surfaces or engines have effects that can put you down into the ground in seconds. That pilot had a HOLLYWOOD MOVIE made about him, it was such a miraculous save. All from a couple of geese striking a major airliner on takeoff.

It's serious. It's not just playing about. The CAA, airports, airlines and pilots don't just shut down an entire airport for the fun of it, costing them ALL millions of pounds of business and huge reputational damage.

You might well have a dozen drones hit a plane and nothing happens. But it only takes one unfortunate metal strut to lodge in a control surface, strike the engine, shatter the windscreen or any of a thousand possibilities to cause a complete destruction of the plane and everyone on it, not to mention anyone under the immediate flightpath.

Risk = Chance (maybe low) x Impact (potentially catastrophic).

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