A first in Canada: Drone collides with passenger plane above Quebec City airport

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm definitely not questioning your expertise on this subject. Your dismissal of the danger of this particular event is actually comforting.

Having said that, when I think about the danger of bird strikes on aircraft, I think of US Airways Flight 1549. The Miracle on the Hudson event. Apparently the aircraft struck a flock of geese, so could a flock of drones have the same impact?

It's a bit of a far-fetched scenario. But it seems to me that a determined terrorist could harness a group of small interconnected drones to create the same type of incident.

-dex

a reply to: DexterRiley

It's going to largely come down to what phase of flight they're in, and the reaction of the crew. A single drone, unless it goes through the engine, isn't even going to be noticed by the aircraft. Most aircraft now can fly on one engine, at least long enough to land at an airport.

A swarm, aimed at the engines could certainly bring an aircraft down. Under the right conditions they can be a serious threat. A single drone, impacting even an engine, no way unless the crew totally screws up.

a reply to: Zaphod58

no way unless the crew totally screws up.

That's possibly the weakest link in the whole system. As the pilots become more and more dependent on automated systems, they are getting rusty at actually controlling the aircraft.

If I'm not mistaken, there are some airports and some aircraft that are being landed automatically these days. If one of those aircraft were to have an engine impact from a drone, would the automated systems be able to handle that situation? How quickly would the crew have to react if something like that occurs?

-dex

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: smurfy

How many planes crash annually from bird strikes? A drone will do significantly less damage than a bird.

Hell, a UH-60 over New York suffered a hit to the cockpit and rotor by a DJI drone, and it landed just fine. The drone bounced off the cockpit door hard enough to damage it, then bounced up into the rotor hard enough to damage the blade it hit. They flew long enough to make a precautionary landing in New Jersey.

You're telling me that a commercial plane is that much more fragile than a helicopter?

Look I know already the politique of the game, and it is a game one crowd set against the other, both being economic with the truth where it suits. I'm not in that game, whatever, it's still an accident waiting to happen...and being singular about helicopters, is not helpful, nor is it particularly scientific...and there's not a lot of that either.

a reply to: smurfy

So you're saying that a drone weighing less than a bird is going to bring down a plane? You want scientific, go look up the stats for bird strikes on commercial aircraft, then look up how many of those landed safely.

So showing that a much more fragile helicopter survived a drone strike isn't helpful? Ok, if you say so.

The only way a drone is a threat to a large aircraft is if it's a swarm of them and they get ingested into the engines. A commercial drone weighs a couple of pounds. Hitting somewhere like the radome, it might punch a hole in it, and it would probably break a windscreen, but it's not bringing a plane down. You can argue it all you want, but barring a crew screw up, it isn't happening.

a reply to: DexterRiley

There's a window when you lose an engine. It isn't a case of, "oh we lost an engine" going straight to "we're crashing". It takes time for the aircraft to start to react to the loss of thrust. The lower you are, the less time you have, but they'd still have several seconds before anything started to happen.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Been away from the thread for a while,

for the record , the plane hit was a king air 200 flying for Skyjet.ca

skyjetaviation.ca...

Not sure what level of recreational drone was involed in the strike, but i gotta think I King air 200 would be more vulnerable that a bigger regional jet

a reply to: Perfect stranger

Exactly. If a King Air comes through an impact with a drone, with barely a mark on it, then something bigger isn't going to be brought down by one, outside some pretty specific situations.

a reply to: Zaphod58

my understanding is that it bounced off a wing, Not sure how windshield would hold up and would agree it could land even with one engine

a reply to: Perfect stranger

At worst it would be similar to a bird strike. On something small like a King Air, it could be pretty bad, but on a larger plane, not so bad.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Here is something I couldn't resist

mythbusters.wikia.com...

After building a large air gun, the MythBusters fired saboted chickens at a fuselage portion, and later at a metal plate viewed with a high speed camera. Originally, impact time or force transferred was the same for both frozen and thawed chickens, but this test was not conducted using airline-qualified glass rated for a bird strike, which has a thicker consistency than normal pane glass. This verdict was later overturned in the Myths Revisited episode.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Perfect stranger

Recent tests of the F-35 windscreen saw the bird bounce off it with no damage. The smaller aircraft generally aren't as resilient, so they take more damage when birds hit the windscreen, but a few months ago a Turkish airliner went through a hail storm that resulted in them having zero visibility, but the windscreen remained intact.

a reply to: Zaphod58

One will still likely need a change of shorts either way

" you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" no you got your peanut butter in my chocolate

a reply to: Perfect stranger



Oh, it was actually AtlasJet, but it was in Turkey.