Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
It might be a good idea to put carbon fiber cages in the form of a dome over the intakes on aircraft and to use metal netting inside the windscreens, but the best way to avoid this is altitude, an area where helicopters eventually have trouble. Glass can always be made stronger, but there are serious weight considerations in aeronautics. Short of developing lighter and stronger materials, we may just have to assume the calculated risk of avian collision.
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We already use some extremely light, strong, non-magnetic materials in aeronautical construction.
My dad was part of the team at GE working with the NTSB to investigate the engines of flight 1549. I've seen photos (and once, for real) of tests during which they test the engines constructed for bird collisions. Sometimes it's disturbing, but it's not like these engines aren't tested and tested again to conform to realistic regulations and design goals. I'm not sure about helicopters - my dad doesn't work on them or test them - but I know that jet engines go through a long, detailed design and testing process before they ever end up on a plane. Once, a guy my dad worked with dropped a bolt inside a GE90 engine while in the final steps of assembly. Because the materials are non-magnetic and designed not to stick to anything other than what they're supposed to, they couldn't get the bolt out of the engine even by un-doing the assembly process they had started when the engine arrived from Japan for completion. They had to send the engine BACK to Japan so an earlier step of assembly could be undone, the bolt removed, and everything put back together again. It cost millions.
I don't believe that the last couple of crashes caused by birds are evidence of underlying design flaws - I believe they are evidence of accidents and just happen to have occurred within a short time of one another. When else have you heard of a crash caused only by birds?