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> to fly a reasonably solid drone into a jet engine on takeoff to achieve a major air disaster Any modern turbine engine can swallow vast quantities ice withou

> to fly a reasonably solid drone into a jet engine on takeoff to achieve a major air disaster Any modern turbine engine can swallow vast quantities ice without much of an issue. I think the baseline is in the region of 500 kilos of ice in 1 minute. A small commercial drone won't make much of an impact to an engine that can fly through a hailstorm without burping. Edit: the abuse a modern engine endures for certification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKfFxwpbUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKfFxwpbUU And if it did, any commercial aircraft certificated since the late 1940s will survive an engine failure on take-off, and continue to climb.

morsch 12y ago
By weight a drone is trivial, but the other properties of the ingested material clearly matter -- water and ice are more malleable than, say, a steal beam. I guess most hobby drones are similar to a bird strike, which is a well understood thing.
tzs 12y ago
Yet sometimes a single bird will take out an engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE Modern engines are designed to contain the damage, and multi-engine jets are designed to be able to maintain control, climb to a safe altitude, and return to the airport with an engine out, so flying a small drone into an engine probably won't cause a major disaster, but it will cause a lot of disruption as the plane declares an emergency and returns to the airport, and cost a lot of money to repair or replace the engine. One of the suggested videos for that one was interesting. It's a video from a forward facing camera in an F-16 as it gets hit by a bird, which shuts down the engine. The pilot tries for a while to restart, fails, ejects, and the plane crashes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_Zl64OQEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_Zl64OQEw

morsch 12y ago

By weight a drone is trivial, but the other properties of the ingested material clearly matter -- water and ice are more malleable than, say, a steal beam. I guess most hobby drones are similar to a bird strike, which is a well understood thing.

tzs 12y ago

Yet sometimes a single bird will take out an engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE Modern engines are designed to contain the damage, and multi-engine jets are designed to be able to maintain control, climb to a safe altitude, and return to the airport with an engine out, so flying a small drone into an engine probably won't cause a major disaster, but it will cause a lot of disruption as the plane declares an emergency and returns to the airport, and cost a lot of money to repair or replace the engine. One of the suggested videos for that one was interesting. It's a video from a forward facing camera in an F-16 as it gets hit by a bird, which shuts down the engine. The pilot tries for a while to restart, fails, ejects, and the plane crashes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_Zl64OQEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_Zl64OQEw