3 ms·
The airflow would be trying to prevent a collision with the front of the wing, and a drone would simply go where the wind blows. Which is to say if a drone flew
by iofj 11y ago
The airflow would be trying to prevent a collision with the front of the wing, and a drone would simply go where the wind blows. Which is to say if a drone flew straight for an airplane wing, it would fly around the wing and suddenly explode in the massive turbulence behind the wing. This would look very surprising because to the naked eye there is nothing behind the wing.
Hitting the fuselage, or entering an engine is probably more realistic. Both would be expensive, but won't be a threat to the passengers. Maybe hitting the wingtips would be doable ... not sure.
- nether 11y agoThere isn't really any "turbulence" behind any modern wing in typical flight regimes. They're very low drag, so flow off the trailing edge is as smooth as the upstream flow.
- throwaway_xx9 11y agoWell, except for those pesky wingtip vortices that can down a smaller airliner.
- nightski 11y agoThis was near landing, so I assume flaps were deployed. That changes things a bit.
- tzs 11y ago30 seconds of Googling turns up numerous examples of bird strikes on the leading edge of wings, some with very substantial damage. Why would airflow around the wing keep a drone from hitting it but not a bird?
- nether 11y agoNothing. Upstream flow stagnates at the leading edge, excess bug splatter there attests to that.
- mveety 11y agoIt can stagnate to the point of bugs not having much of an issue staying on the wing during flight. I remember a case when I was flight training where we had a little spider as a passenger on the top of the starboard wing for the duration of the flight. The little guy didn't fall off until the wing stalled out when we were landing.
- ajross 11y agoThat's a different effect. The region just above the surface is a turbulent boundary layer without much net flow. But it's very thin.