The bird-strike problem

First of all, some very fine engineering minds have worked on this problem. I think that mesh has already crossed their minds. In the helos, we used particle separators, but that's an entirely different ball game.

Secondly, a flock of geese could have most definitely taken down a commercial plane.

One bird, one kill

Thirdly, it was an Airbus!

Originally posted by HatTrick
Thirdly, it was an Airbus!

What has that got to do with anything, and why are you laughing? From my impression, this has actually improved Airbus's safety in my mind and maybe others as the aircraft was able to glide and land in the water without breaking up on impact. Of course quite a lot of it was down to the pilot, but it also says quite a lot about the strength and resilience of the plane (which all planes are supposedly designed for). I dont think it being an Airbus makes any difference at all when it comes to birds as it could have easily been a Boeing in its place.

tronied I was thinking the exact same thing.
Was even thinking of designing and patenting some kind of preventative apparatus for jet engines, until I searched and found already about 20 of these.
So the technology is there, it would just seem the airlines and aircraft manufacturers would not wish to spend more money.
As usual our safety comes second to there profits.

What has that got to do with anything

The engine separated after a bird strike. Separated! I don't have any empirical data to show that Boeing aircraft do NOT lose engines after a bird strike, but I haven't heard of any. This and the nose wheel debacles, the vertical stabilizer separation - WEIRD things happen to Airbuses and particularly this model. THAT'S what this has got to do with anything.

Originally posted by HatTrick

The engine separated after a bird strike. Separated! I don't have any empirical data to show that Boeing aircraft do NOT lose engines after a bird strike,

The Airbus's engine separated when it hit the water not when it struck the flock of birds, and this is something that could have happened to any make of aircraft not just the Airbus

Ive been working in Machine shops most of the past 30 years. And many times as a setup man on machinery or assembly lines of differing machines/toolings and such.
From Automotive to Dept of Defense etc.....
Imo they need to simply make a strong yet light "Deer fence" type guard over the complete fronts of all the turbines. something like the honeycomb or checkerd patterned like metal material we use to make guards over or around heavy or dangerous operations. Im sure many of you know and have seen these see thru metal workings before.
Now I realize this may add weight and size because of extra cowling need to compensate for the cover but it stops the huge bird stuff a lot better and breaks it up before hitting rotors and just seems logical IMO.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by VType]

Originally posted by HatTrick

What has that got to do with anything

The engine separated after a bird strike. Separated! I don't have any empirical data to show that Boeing aircraft do NOT lose engines after a bird strike, but I haven't heard of any. This and the nose wheel debacles, the vertical stabilizer separation - WEIRD things happen to Airbuses and particularly this model. THAT'S what this has got to do with anything.

Oh give it a rest, you are floundering around trying to find something to tar Airbus with.

As someone else noted, the engine separated on impact with the water - thats what it was supposed to do under FAA regulations, if the stress on the engine mount becomes too much. Separation of the engine from the wing is most certainly better than the alternatives, if the engine mount is getting *that* stressed.

That said, you are quite right - no, Boeing aircraft do not lose engines after a bird strike, they just lose them when nothing at all hits the aircraft:

1. JAL Boeing 747 had an engine separate from the aircraft in 1993 over Anchorage, Alaska. The aircraft safely returned to the airfield.

2. El Al Boeing 747 in 1992 plunged into an apartment block, killing many people, after two of its four engines separated and fatally crippled the airliner.

3. China Airlines Boeing 747 lost two engines over Taiwan, killing 5 people.

In none of these cases were bird strikes reported or found to be the cause.

I can go on and on about Boeing aircraft issues if you really want me to, for example the several decades of 737 'hard over' events that Boeing denied was a problem with the aircraft for 20 years, until the FAA foudn the fault and forced Boeing to correct it, or how about the 747 forward cargo door locking mechanism fault which caused the side of an aircraft to be ripped off, killing several people in the process - Boeing knew about that one as well, but failed to correct the issue.

But, I'm sure, it would get boring pretty damn quickly if I went on about Boeings issues.

Oh, and about the 'nose wheel debacles' - the failure mode on those nose wheels is *precisely* what you want to happen! The centering mechanism fails, so the wheel turns hard until it reaches the lock and stays there. Aircraft lands, you replace the front wheel assembly and the plane flys again after a check over. Looks pretty spectacular, but in reality isn't anything special.

If it *didnt* fail in that manner, you now have a nose wheel that you dont know where it is pointing - it cant center itself, so you now have the equivilent of a castor wheel on the front of the aircraft. Yeah, thats going to work wonders on landing, isn't it! The alternative in this situation would be to land with the nose gear stowed. Wow, fantastic.

Airbus aircraft are as safe as Boeing aircraft. That is a fact backed up by international air safety data. To say anything other than that is nothing short of prejudice.

[edit on 21/1/2009 by RichardPrice]

Originally posted by VType
Ive been working in Machine shops most of the past 30 years. And many times as a setup man on machinery or assembly lines of differing machines/toolings and such.
From Automotive to Dept of Defense etc.....
Imo they need to simply make a strong yet light "Deer fence" type guard over the complete fronts of all the turbines. something like the honeycomb or checkerd patterned like metal material we use to make guards over or around heavy or dangerous operations. Im sure many of you know and have seen these see thru metal workings before.
Now I realize this may add weight and size because of extra cowling need to compensate for the cover but it stops the huge bird stuff a lot better and breaks it up before hitting rotors and just seems logical IMO.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by VType]

The problem is - you now have something in front of the fan that you need to certify:

1. Won't fail under any normal operation circumstance - and the big problem with that is ice buildup, which means hte engine could be ingesting chunks of ice that have formed on the grid. This will both shorten the engine life, and could in itself cause the engine to fail in the same manner as a bird strike.

2. Won't fail when the bird strikes it - ingesting a bird is bad enough, ingesting a bird and several square meters of grid is much much worse - it can cause a blade off event, which means you suddenly have twenty or thirty kilograms of blade which has been spinning at 10,000 rpm flying around.

Believe me, the relevent safety boards have studied the options and dismissed an engine covering for many reasons.

Originally posted by HatTrick
The engine separated after a bird strike. Separated!

I don't have any empirical data to show that Boeing aircraft do NOT lose engines after a bird strike, but I haven't heard of any.

You do realise that engines are mounted with shear bolts to separate from the wing in the event of blade loss? (or more correctly, heavy cyclic loading through the pylon)

Otherwise, the (now) cyclic loading on the wing through the pylon from the windmilling fan blade would quickly result in wing failure.


That goes for aircraft from Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, Antonov, Tupolev and any other aircraft manufacturers you care to name.


Knowledgeable... you are not.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
Airbus aircraft are as safe as Boeing aircraft. That is a fact backed up by international air safety data. To say anything other than that is nothing short of prejudice.

Absolutely correct.

Originally posted by kilcoo316

Originally posted by Enigma Publius
However i don't buy the official story anyway. It's interesting that you posted your thread at the same moment i did mine where i propose that this incident was a false flag. to many funny things here.

What?


You don't believe it was a double birdstrike? Despite witnesses clearly indicating that they seen the aircraft fly through a flock of birds?

It was a holographic birdstrike combined with a controlled demolition.

I love how every event is a "False Flag" operation for some. Of course what the False Flag would be is a little lacking in detail.

Use dogs...or some animal that likes to eat birds, that way birds know whose territory it belongs to and not mill around nearby airports. Perhaps a hawk.

Its also worth noting that the US Airlines incident was not the fault of, or had anything to do with, the airport - the aircraft was at 3,200ft and several miles down range at the time of the bird strike, well outside any area controllable by the airport.

Originally posted by Enigma Publius
reply to post by tronied

 

well they have studied this a lot and i think the current design trend is meant to somewhat prevent this. However i don't buy the official story anyway. It's interesting that you posted your thread at the same moment i did mine where i propose that this incident was a false flag. to many funny things here.

You can put your conspiracy theories away - the NTSB have confirmed evidence of soft body strikes on both engines, and evidence of bird strikes on other areas of the aircraft.

Also it has been revealed that engine 1 continued to function at ~ 35% power, allowing the aircraft to function with many of the normal aerodynamic features that wouldnt be otherwise available in a complete power loss situation, such as flaps and avionics and the normal flight laws the fly by wire systems operate under - complete power loss would result in the FBW system going to direct control, and inability to deploy flaps and other devices due to the lack of power from the RAT.

reply to post by deltaboy


Hawks are used as are dogs and sound cannons and light and relfective tape, but there will always be birds and flying will always have some inherent risk as any complex machine can and will fail at some time.
But civilian , aircraft have an amazingly good saftey record in general, considering the billions of hrs flown.

You are more likely to die in a giant asteroid impact than to die in an airplane crash.

And considering how fragile a jet engine really is its amazing that they can withstand any impact.