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I flew back from New York yesterday. On take off in the dark, birds hit the cockpit and were sucked into one of the engines. It made a pop and the plane yawed. Those were the terms used by the pilot.
The pilot made an emergency landing back at Newark asking us not to be alarmed by the phalanx of fire engines with their lights flashing at the end of the runway. He said landing with full tanks increased the stopping distance.
We made it safely down.
Just how dangerous can a bird strike be on take off, or anywhere in flight for that matter?
Did you not do a little plop in your pants? Just a little one? 🙂
Just how dangerous can a bird strike be on take off, or anywhere in flight for that matter?
For you or the bird?
Could have been a trip into the Hudson river
Did you not do a little plop in your pants? Just a little one?
I think everyone did.
I hoped Charlton Heston would come out of retirement and rescue us.
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On that 'inside Gatwick' documentry last night, they were showing this bird/engine interface video
😯
I am in no way a trained aviator, but from what I've read....
Bird strikes can be very nasty (as shown in the clip posted above). Apparently geese are pretty bad and it can lead to the loss of an engine.
BUT
most (if not all) commercial planes are designed to run with 50% engine power for 'short' periods of time - ie "s&&t, where's the nearest place to put down"
*all information comes from non-specific reading!
Just how dangerous can a bird strike be on take off, or anywhere in flight for that matter?
How about 'killing the engines and turning the aeroplane into a large lump of unpowered metal that obeys gravity'? That's pretty dangerous - which is why airfields cut the grass just the right length and employ bird scarers.
I would suggest you watch the documentary about the Hudson River bird strike crash.
To say your lucky is a bit of an understatement
A couple of birds leading to 1/2 the engines failing, you'll prob be OK..... a whole flock leading to a complete loss of power, well, you know how gravity works....
Some great vids on youtube of brid strike simulation and sand and water ingestion tests...
Just how dangerous can a bird strike be on take off, or anywhere in flight for that matter?
It's terminal for the engine. Unless it loses all it's engines the planes usualy able to fly/land as they're supposed to cope with just 1 left.
Not an expert but did work at Rolls royce briefly looking at the wear to the seal between turbine blades and the caseing so got to watch a few cool tests.
Did you know you can run an aero engine on coal dust?
the trick is to defrost the chicken first.
Fully loaded plane, engines at full whack to get you up and away from the runway, steep angle of attack & flaps down to get more lift at the expense of drag.....bird strike! Rather you than me!
most (if not all) commercial planes are designed to run with 50% engine power for 'short' periods of time - ie "s&&t, where's the nearest place to put down"
I think this is correct for cruising - they can fly on greatly reduced power, but not so sure about this on take off when it's all working against you.......
EDIT - although I guess they must have a factor of safety built in to enable them to reduce their climb rate, retract the flaps etc.....
Not bird strike related, but I love this one for showing the resilience of jet engines 🙂
The reason twin engine aircraft seem to climb quicker and steeper than a 4 engine (under normal conditions) is that they need to be able to continue a positive climb in the even of an engine loss. So, they are able to carry on if you have a bird strike that results in an engine loss. It might mean that the functioning engine needs some serious attention (or gets scrapped) but it will do the job.
Once happened to me on an Edinburgh to Stansted flight, en route to Milan.
We had to divert to Teeside [i]International[/i]. I'm still not sure if the birdstrike or the airport was the scarier experience!
We had to divert to Teeside International. I'm still not sure if the birdstrike or the airport was the scarier experience!
It has now been renamed to Durham Tees Valley in order not to scare delicate, sensitive people. Having a plane land there must have been a nice break from the daily routine for all the people working there though.
We had to divert to Teeside International. I'm still not sure if the birdstrike or the airport was the scarier experience!
I love flying from there and other similar airports
In and on the plane in double quick time, unlike most of the shopping mall airports I usually have to use
My father used to design bits of planes. He spent a few years at Handley Page on the team that built Victor bombers and once the jet was reconfigured for low flight operations he was responsible for the team that tested bird strikes. Yes, they did indeed fire chickens at planes using a specially designed cannon to guage the damage.
His most scary moment was when he was taken for a flight around Hertfordshire in a Victor, fresh from the production lines. The plane flew faultlessly, but a few months hence the company had a call from an RAF maintenence depot in the pacific. After inspecting a wing fuel tank, a small wooden stool was discovered within.
The stool belonged to an electrician who was installing the wiring in the plane. Apparently, he'd stopped work for a tea break, climbed out of the fuel tank and buggered off somewhere. While he was gone, it was assumed that the wiring was complete and the fuel tank was duly sealed.
Could have been nasty that one.
Can only speak for the Airbus here, but it's fairly benign with regard to engine failures. Swift corrective action and very careful control inputs are required on the runway, but once airborne it's safe, stable, and easy to fly.
This is an Airbus demo video showing the engine failure from the pilot's point of view:
Excess power is obviously vastly reduced so the the climb rate isn't brilliant, but it will trundle around on one engine all day if needed.
stumpy - the excess power is needed only for initial climb out. At high altitudes both engines are running pretty much flat-out just to stay in the air.
(to put my comments in context, as for some reason jf has removed).
I'm slightly surprised at ATC telling him which exit to take off the runway whilst still on approach (about 4:30) - I know they weren't too concerned about anything, but I'd have thought they'd still reduce the amount of things the pilots have to think about until they're down. I bet the passengers applauded when they got it down!
I find it incredible that there's no way to protect the engines against bird strikes. It must be one of, if not the biggest cause of engine failure and it seems like it should be really straightforward to stop it!
Any of the in house aero engineers care to elablorate on why it isn't done?
Ta!
Probably because you can't really put a barrier in front of an engine otherwise air wouldn't get in. IIRC engines are designed to ingest and shred a bird.
chicken-wire mesh over the engine intake ?
woody2000. the answer is economics.
Anyway losing pone engine is fine the hudson river plane lost all engines. Deep doo doo.
I realise they need to suck in huge amounts of air, but a large bore mesh that would stop "big" birds must be do-able?
engines are designed to ingest and shred a bird.
Those pictures would suggest otherwise! 😯
What about wing mounted auto-snipers? 😀
Or a trained one of these?
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chicken-wire mesh over the engine intake
At the speed the air is going at the engine intake, chicken wire would provide a significant amount of drag (and make the engine far less efficient). And the bird would still get sucked into the engine - along with some nice bits of wire.
Any of the in house aero engineers care to elablorate on why it isn't done?
Aero noise from the grating, inlet air flow rate/flow stability and it's effect on engine size/efficiency? At the speed the plane is going, the interface between the bird and the grating would result in chip sized pieces of bird entering the engine, plus the grating would have to be mighty strong to resist the air pressure at crusing speeds! Plus it's all extra weight, which is bad, mmm'kay.....
Only work with industrial gas turbines (some aero-derivative), but even there a stable inlet air flow is very important to maintain efficient and effective engine operation.
What happens in the event of a Baggage-Handler Strike?
it seems like it should be really straightforward to stop it!
Don't fly at birds. Seems to stop it mostly. Like 'not flying into the ground' mostly works too.
Woody2000, what the hell is that??
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Chicken_Gun ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Chicken_Gun[/url]
I watched a Red Kite narrowly miss the air intake of a plane landing at heathrow last week on my commute. On the positive side, at least you didn't have to land in the Hudson. That was the result of multiple bird strikes.
When one of my friends first started at RR, many years ago, his first project was to establish a reliable measure of velocity when firing frozen chickens [edit]defrosted ^^^[/edit] into the front end of an engine.
As TINAS said, birdstrike's not a big issue for safety on a 4 engined plane but it may be terminal for the impacted engine and invariably so for the bird.
From a story I've heard from Rolls Royce engineers when testing, it's worse if the chicken is still frozen.
EDIT: - did it really take me 10 minutes to post that?
Wasn't it from a twilightzone episode?Woody2000, what the hell is that??
From a story I've heard from Rolls Royce engineers when testing, it's worse if the chicken is still frozen.
Have you seen the video?
bOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
If you look, some helicopters use a 'dust guard' to prevent significant blade erosion on the engine. This wouldn't work for fixed wing aircraft due to the forward airspeed/what bristolbiker said. However, it would stop chicken ingestion. @13thfloormonk, i think it's from a steven king film, where the 'gremlin' is breaking up the engine/wing! I still look out for them...
Yep, Twilight Zone movie. 😀
I work at rr. we have a chicken farm in nottingham for testing supplies.
Considering Aero engine designers have figured out how to hold the turbine blades at temperatures far in excess of the melting temperature of the metal and figured out how to initiate combustion when the speed of flame propagation is lower than the velocity of the air passing it, I think if chicken wire over the front was a viable solution it might have been employed before now... Loosing one engine (as long as it is a contained engine failure, there is a chance it could become un-contained but that is a different kettle of fish) isn't such an issue as you have the other to land with (search for ETOPS.)
Iain
Durham Tees Airport was originally RAF Goosepool. Not a promising name if your trying to avoid bird strikes.
On the Hudson river documentary they said you can't stop stuff getting in to the engine. Chicken wire etc would disturb the air flow in to the engine causing vibration and loss of efficiency.
They also said that the large turbine blades are designed to fail and not blow then engine apart. I'm sure they said that eventually everything gets sucked into the internal bit of the engine which is only cm's in diameter and its at that point where the catastrophic failure occurs and there is no way round it.
The technology is going in to removing birds from airports, not changing the engine