5 ms·

It seems scary, but does anything change? The cowling only offers protection from the side. How many birds hit from the side at that velocity?

• nieve 5y ago
  The cowling also provides containment of parts that happen to go ballistic.
  • profile53 5y ago
    To elaborate, the big benefit is that they keep pieces of the fan blade and engine from cutting through the body of the plane at close to the speed of sound. It’s happened before and is not pretty. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
    • eloff 5y ago
      That's a good point.