Gatwick closed by drones
Discussion
roadsmash said:
Metallic yes, but a lot of small drones are mostly plastic with a tiny metal motor. One of these getting sucked into a large jet engine would likely disintegrate.
Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
Turbines are designed to withstand bird strikes in general without exploding, yes, that doesn't mean it's not going to cause severe damage, a turbine blade doing nigh on 1000mph hitting a steel/iron motor core will definately leave a mark. It also doesn't mean even a bird strike won't shut down an engine when you're needing full thrust on takeoff.Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
I was at Derby some years back when they were testing the Trent engines on the outdoor rig for containment in the event of damage to a single turbine blade - even in an office on the other side of the factory you felt the rumble as it grenaded itself inside the casing. From damage to one blade out of hundreds.
Edited by PhillipM on Saturday 19th January 20:25
PhillipM said:
Turbines are designed to withstand bird strikes in general without exploding, yes, that doesn't mean it's not going to cause severe damage, a turbine blade doing nigh on 1000mph hitting a steel/iron motor core will definately leave a mark. It also doesn't mean even a bird strike won't shut down an engine when you're needing full thrust on takeoff.
I was at Derby some years back when they were testing the Trent engines on the outdoor rig for containment in the event of damage to a single turbine blade - even in an office on the other side of the factory you felt the rumble as it grenaded itself inside the casing. From damage to one blade out of hundreds.
Was that when they used the frozen chicken by mistake?I was at Derby some years back when they were testing the Trent engines on the outdoor rig for containment in the event of damage to a single turbine blade - even in an office on the other side of the factory you felt the rumble as it grenaded itself inside the casing. From damage to one blade out of hundreds.
Edited by PhillipM on Saturday 19th January 20:25
roadsmash said:
Metallic yes, but a lot of small drones are mostly plastic with a tiny metal motor. One of these getting sucked into a large jet engine would likely disintegrate.
Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
I've got 23 years working in Aviation - Sorry but you're wrong.Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
Anything metal or "hard" (stones etc) even the size of a 1p coin hitting an engine at 150mph+ WILL wreck an airliners engine. The internals of a modern turbo-fan engine has hundreds of blades spinning at extremely high rotational speed, with some of the blades only being finger length, so any impact of a metal object will cause a failure which, at the very least, would force the aircrew to shut-down the engine. The absolute best case is that it would only damage the fan at the front and then miss the compression core, where you;'d be left with an unbalanced fan but a still be able to produce power.
Also, the reason planes still fly after "hitting small birds" is that birds are soft, yet even small birds can cause enough engine damage that the plane has to shut down an engine.
i think the bird ingestion tests are more to prove that any failure remains contained within the casing, as opposed to whether it can still generate useful thrust, but I could be wrong, I'm just basing that on a conversation I had with an aircraft tech a few years ago.
I think a drone strike would all depend on what part of the front fan assembly it hit. It is a bit of a catch 22 the closer to the fan disk it hits the more debris will end up in the other stages of the core and into the burner chamber, but the blade velocities are lower at the centre, if it hits towards the outside the blade velocities are higher but more debris would end up leaving via the bypass duct and be less likely to cause flameout.
I think a drone strike would all depend on what part of the front fan assembly it hit. It is a bit of a catch 22 the closer to the fan disk it hits the more debris will end up in the other stages of the core and into the burner chamber, but the blade velocities are lower at the centre, if it hits towards the outside the blade velocities are higher but more debris would end up leaving via the bypass duct and be less likely to cause flameout.
IanH755 said:
roadsmash said:
Metallic yes, but a lot of small drones are mostly plastic with a tiny metal motor. One of these getting sucked into a large jet engine would likely disintegrate.
Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
I've got 23 years working in Aviation - Sorry but you're wrong.Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
Anything metal or "hard" (stones etc) even the size of a 1p coin hitting an engine at 150mph+ WILL wreck an airliners engine. The internals of a modern turbo-fan engine has hundreds of blades spinning at extremely high rotational speed, with some of the blades only being finger length, so any impact of a metal object will cause a failure which, at the very least, would force the aircrew to shut-down the engine. The absolute best case is that it would only damage the fan at the front and then miss the compression core, where you;'d be left with an unbalanced fan but a still be able to produce power.
Also, the reason planes still fly after "hitting small birds" is that birds are soft, yet even small birds can cause enough engine damage that the plane has to shut down an engine.
El stovey said:
Whatsmyname said:
steve_k said:
This drone incident has proven it is very easy to cause a lot of problems to an airport with very little risk and outlay. I would imagine some less desirable groups/terrorists will be planning more attacks now the method has been proven.
Is the only reason no ones flown a drone into a plane engine the fact that their either too stupid to think of it or they havent got the balls? Would the drone on its own do enough damage or would it need to carry something? I cant thing it would be hard if you was guided by a go pro and surely the suction from the engine would do the rest of the work?
They’d happily fly a drone into an aircraft if they could. They seem to focus on high profile death and destruction though rather than causing disruption and delays.
roadsmash said:
IanH755 said:
roadsmash said:
Metallic yes, but a lot of small drones are mostly plastic with a tiny metal motor. One of these getting sucked into a large jet engine would likely disintegrate.
Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
I've got 23 years working in Aviation - Sorry but you're wrong.Anything larger I agree would be catastrophic.
Someone meaning to do harm would likely use a large one anyway, so it’s trivial.
Planes hit small birds on a daily basis and most continue on to their destination safely.
Again it really depends on the size and weight of the object.
Anything metal or "hard" (stones etc) even the size of a 1p coin hitting an engine at 150mph+ WILL wreck an airliners engine. The internals of a modern turbo-fan engine has hundreds of blades spinning at extremely high rotational speed, with some of the blades only being finger length, so any impact of a metal object will cause a failure which, at the very least, would force the aircrew to shut-down the engine. The absolute best case is that it would only damage the fan at the front and then miss the compression core, where you;'d be left with an unbalanced fan but a still be able to produce power.
Also, the reason planes still fly after "hitting small birds" is that birds are soft, yet even small birds can cause enough engine damage that the plane has to shut down an engine.
techguyone said:
People going on about drones being plastic with only small motors so are fairly harmless would do well to remember that the biggest hard object in it, is none of those things, it will be the battery, which will be relatively big, heavy and hard/non compressible.
Here's the battery from my mavic pro with a deck of cards for comparison. 
eltawater said:
techguyone said:
People going on about drones being plastic with only small motors so are fairly harmless would do well to remember that the biggest hard object in it, is none of those things, it will be the battery, which will be relatively big, heavy and hard/non compressible.
Here's the battery from my mavic pro with a deck of cards for comparison. No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
If items such as these bought down engines then every runway in the UK would be checked with a fine tooth comb after every TO/LG.
Reality is that most busy airports just drive up the runway a few times a day to check for large objects.
Someone mentioned STONES. Heaven forbid one or two of these bring down an engine.
Reality is that most busy airports just drive up the runway a few times a day to check for large objects.
Someone mentioned STONES. Heaven forbid one or two of these bring down an engine.
roadsmash said:
Again, the Mavic Pro (2?) is quite a chunky drone.
No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
It's more spindly than anything due to the way the arms extend outwards. The main body of the mavic is quite slender as the bulk of it is the battery which is comprised of three cells and some circuit boards.No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
eltawater said:
roadsmash said:
Again, the Mavic Pro (2?) is quite a chunky drone.
No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
It's more spindly than anything due to the way the arms extend outwards. The main body of the mavic is quite slender as the bulk of it is the battery which is comprised of three cells and some circuit boards.No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
roadsmash said:
eltawater said:
techguyone said:
People going on about drones being plastic with only small motors so are fairly harmless would do well to remember that the biggest hard object in it, is none of those things, it will be the battery, which will be relatively big, heavy and hard/non compressible.
Here's the battery from my mavic pro with a deck of cards for comparison. No doubt this would cause some serious damage.
I have ....
The small cell will be from an indoor drone. Outdoor drones have a battery of cells and are you couldn't want to be smacked on the head by one.
Indoor drones don't have to fight the wind and only have to be capable of 1 or 2 knots to appear impressive. Comparing an indoor drone and an outdoor drone is like comparing a Sopwith Camel to a Spitfire.
Indoor drones don't have to fight the wind and only have to be capable of 1 or 2 knots to appear impressive. Comparing an indoor drone and an outdoor drone is like comparing a Sopwith Camel to a Spitfire.
roadsmash said:
I guess it’s a matter of perspective, but in my opinion that’s a medium size drone and could easily bring down a plane.
Easily? That's a bold statement. You get one shot at hitting a fast moving target somewhere between V1 & Vr, without knowing precisely where this will happen. Before V1 and it will stop on the runway, once it's airborne your chances of hitting the target are absolutely miniscule.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff