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Toys United Kingdom

Jet Strikes Drone Near Heathrow Airport (marketwatch.com) 401

smooth wombat writes: "A British Airways flight Sunday appears to have collided with a drone on a flight bound for London's busy Heathrow Airport in what may be the first such incident involving a major airline," according to MarketWatch. "The flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Heathrow, Europe's busiest hub, is believed to have struck a drone, the London Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The plane landed safely following the incident, which occurred around 12:50 p.m. local time. 'It was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don't understand the risks and the rules,' said BALPA flight safety specialist Steve Landells... 'Much more education of drone users and enforcement of the rules is needed to ensure our skies remain safe from this threat'."
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Jet Strikes Drone Near Heathrow Airport

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  • regulation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noah Haders ( 3621429 ) on Sunday April 17, 2016 @10:32PM (#51929349)

    I hope everybody is ok. This bodes very poorly for drone ultraregulation and enforcement. As the summary says, it was only a matter of time.

    • Re:regulation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17, 2016 @11:36PM (#51929543)

      Here's the thing though-

      Every commercial plane is tested against strikes with fowl. Are they really going to tell me a drone is going to cause more damage that a chicken being shot through a cannon?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun

      I get you don't want airspace to be packed with drones, but is an occasional strike really worth all this handwringing?

      It seems more they are in search of finding a reason to regulate than addressing any current problem.

      • Re: regulation (Score:3, Informative)

        by cmurf ( 2833651 )
        Yes. The battery is alot more dense than a bird. If a fan blade is even chipped, it can crack and splinter, in which case the entire engine breaks apart internally. There's a recent model simulating this floating around, and it shows the engine fan blades disintegrating in less than one revolution after impact.
        • Re: regulation (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18, 2016 @01:40AM (#51929879)

          If a fan blade is even chipped

          Small chips are routinely repaired during engine overhauls by "blending"; filing and sanding away the sharp corners caused by FOD that accumulates in in-service engines. There are manufacturer guidelines covering the location and size of damage may be repaired through blending, and tool manufacturers sell specialized blending tools. Your claim that "even chipped" blades will disintegrate an engine is bogus. It is impossible to operate a gas turbine in real-world conditions without accumulating small "chips" in compressor and turbine blades and stators.

          Please don't make stuff up to amplify concerns about drones, or anything else for that matter.

        • Yes. The battery is alot more dense than a bird.

          A soft squishy bird yes, but they don't ingestion test with soft squishy birds, but rather solid frozen birds.

          LiPos are soft anyway. There's very little resistance to chopping them up with an ultra fast moving turbofan blade. I'd be more worried about the 4 solid chunks of ferrite and copper that make the little drone fly.

    • Re:regulation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday April 18, 2016 @07:40AM (#51930975)

      Apparently, no repairs were needed, nobody was injured and they are not even sure it was a drone. Talk about irrational fears...

  • I got a small, China made drone here.

    The bilingual (Chinese/Chinglish) manual makes me understand how to operate the thing, but not a single word about safety. Just adding legal limits (e.g. minimum distance from airports, maximum height, distance from buildings - or even links to national web sites where such rules are explained) of where to fly them would be a great improvement.

    • by khallow ( 566160 )
      Why should a Chinese manufacturer know the rules of operation for your region of the world? It's not the manufacturer's responsibility because they aren't flying your drone for you nor do they know the specific rules or situation of your locale. You are and you should know that.
      • by wvmarle ( 1070040 ) on Sunday April 17, 2016 @11:09PM (#51929473)

        Putting in a general notice such as "limits may exist in your part of the world, look them up before flying this thing", and maybe even spending a few hours online to get links to rule making bodies in their major export markets, shouldn't be too much to ask.

    • The bilingual (Chinese/Chinglish) manual makes me understand how to operate the thing, but not a single word about safety. Just adding legal limits (e.g. minimum distance from airports, maximum height, distance from buildings - or even links to national web sites where such rules are explained) of where to fly them would be a great improvement.

      Here's a "common sense" suggestion that really shouldn't have to be in the manual: Don't fly your drone in the approach path of an airport.

      • by wvmarle ( 1070040 ) on Sunday April 17, 2016 @11:07PM (#51929461)

        There are lots of "common sense" things, especially in US manuals, such as don't iron clothes on your body or while taking a bath.

        Obviously plenty of people need reminders.

        • There are lots of "common sense" things, especially in US manuals, such as don't iron clothes on your body or while taking a bath. Obviously plenty of people need reminders.

          If you need to be "reminded" not to fly a drone in the approach path of an airport, you should not be flying a drone. As well, the "reminder" would probably do no do. Flying drones around airports is almost certainly a specific conscious decision.

          • The problem is, other than a bit of bold text in a manual, there's not much in the way of education. Any fucking idiot in most places can buy a drone, use it to fly in the path of aircraft, spy on their neighbors, and so forth, and there's usually no way to tie a particular offending drone to the fucking moron whose using it.

        • Warning: This ladder is not a flotation device.
        • by Deagol ( 323173 )

          All bets are off when we live in a world where "WARNING: Contains peanuts" is a thing on containers of peanut butter.

    • I'm guessing that the type of people who fly drones near airports are also the type of people who don't read safety instructions, or think about safety ever, really.
    • or even links to national web sites where such rules are explained) of where to fly them would be a great improvement.

      Honestly if I were a manufacturer I would have written nothing too. The rules have changed multiple times in the past year when the FAA changed classifications, the government decided all of DC was a no fly zone and the rules were made, relaxed, made, registration, then registration only above a weight class.

      The only thing that I would have written as a manufacturer would be "check local rules and regulations before flying"

    • On most products, such warning labels aren't there to inform users; they're there to give vendor a legal pass in case user does something stupid.

      On electrical equipment: "do not submerge in water", "do not operate when cord is damaged". On something that uses (open) flame: "do not place near curtains or other combustible items". On a plastic bag: "do not eat". Or anything along those lines. Come on... Darwin takes care of that. The labels are there so vendor can sa

  • by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Sunday April 17, 2016 @10:59PM (#51929429)
    If shooting them down is illegal then running them down with a 747 has to be illegal too.
  • I call BS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ebonum ( 830686 )

    Most commercial airliners have what most people would call high landing speeds. About 150 to 160mph
    Every time I hear that a pilot saw a drone on approach, I think: How? Maybe he saw something. A plastic bag, a large bird. At that speed, it isn't easy to see a lot of details on a small object. Maybe it was a drone. Those small jet front windshields don't give great views, and they aren't always perfectly clean.
    Human eye's aren't perfect.
    I challenge you to get a good look at a drone while driving a car

    • TFS

      A British Airways flight Sunday appears to have collided with a drone

      It's not just a pilot who merely thinks he saw a drove, the flight apparently collided with a drone, not the same thing.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        He saw something and there was a dull thud. They decided it must be a drone because that's a lot more exciting.

        • by Max_W ( 812974 )
          If there was a thud, then there should be a scratch. It is not difficult to make a photo with a smartphone camera and publish it. Also there would be a damaged drone. Independent witnesses' accounts, etc.

          I think there is another reason behind this "drones danger" media campaign. There is a worry that the Chinese civil drones producers, - DJI Innovations, Yuneec, etc. have got the leading positions on the market. These companies left behind western enterprises for about a decade, their sales are in tens o
          • by sjames ( 1099 )

            More likely, there is a deep seated fear that if Citizens get their own air power, they can show the truth on camera to other citizens. They want us afraid of the eye in the sky, not the other way around.

            • by Max_W ( 812974 )
              Maybe this too. Until now flying was the domain of a State. The flight of a helicopter costs 9000 per hour. Only a State can afford it on a regular basis.

              I remember how difficult was the aerial photography before. People had to use kites, helium balloons, water rockets to lift a camera in the air with mixed results. A kite needs very strong wind, helium balloons' cord vibrates like a guitar string. A water rocket flies OK, but a camera parachute is not reliable.
              • by Xest ( 935314 )

                "Maybe this too. Until now flying was the domain of a State. The flight of a helicopter costs 9000 per hour. Only a State can afford it on a regular basis."

                Um, are you suggesting $9,000 per hour? If so that's completely false, that's not even remotely near the cost, in fact, it's out by an order of magnitude. Try closer to $500 per flight hour, including fuel and maintenance costs, scaling up to maybe $1500 for helicopters that are more expensive to run. Even that low end is probably an overestimate in prac

  • Every other device has grills, why not jet engines? Birds have been causing problems also. Can't ban birds.

    • by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Monday April 18, 2016 @01:01AM (#51929755) Journal
      You don't put a grill over the engine, because all that would do with a large birdstrike is add bits of metal into the mass of bird going into the engine.

      Airports can, and do, put a huge amount of effort into clearing birds from around their runways, due to the risks that birdstrike presents during takeoff and landing. To quote from one of Heathrow Airport's own documents: [heathrow.com]

      Birds can present a safety risk if they become caught in aircraft engines. Heathrowâ(TM)s bird hazard management team aim to make the airport as unappealing as possible for birds through habitat management, disturbing birds using distress noises, letting off flares and, as a last resort, through culling.

      Bird populations can even influence the siting of airports. When a major recent UK study ruled out the construction of a new airport in the Thames Estuary (to the east of the capital), [www.gov.uk] the scale of the bird-management that would be necessary was one of several reasons cited:

      The operational risk to the airport posed by birdstrike could increase the scale of compensatory habitat required as it would require it to be sited further away, ideally to a minimum of 20km away from the site, and certainly outside of the 13km bird safeguarding circle, increasing the uncertainty as to its suitability as replacement for the habitat lost. It may also necessitate additional mitigation measures to be put in place. If any remaining bird habitats within the 13km safeguarding circle (that is those not already displaced by the airport's direct impact) were considered to pose an operational safety risk additional mitigation measures would be needed and it may ultimately be necessary to remove those habitats, increasing further the environmental impact and cost of compensation.
      • You don't put a grill over the engine, because all that would do with a large birdstrike is add bits of metal into the mass of bird going into the engine.

        You seem to be assuming a pretty wimpy "grill", when in fact they could be made extremely strong.... Think: Prison bars.

        In addition, a nice sharp beveled angle is required, so the debris can be deflected and pushed away from the engine.

        Additionally, jet turbines around the 50s certainly DID have screens, in an attempt to prevent debris from entering engin

        • by KGIII ( 973947 )

          Do you seriously think you're smarter than the many, many Ph.D laden folks who work on this every single day for a lifetime?

          I'm not kidding - I'd love an answer. Do you really think they've not thought of this and that you're somehow more adept, smarter, and insightful than they are?

          I see this a lot here on Slashdot and it baffles me. "They should do X!" Umm... They've already tried X and, for whatever reason, decided X was stupid. They really do know more than you. If they need their Windows box cleaned of

    • by Max_W ( 812974 )
      The SU-27 jet has got the engine grills. You can see them clearly at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
      • Wouldn't it also have to do with the size of the intake? The grill will have to be much stronger to protect a larger engine from the same impact.

        Using this [wikipedia.org], and comparing to the wingspan (14.7m), the intake on a SU-27 has a cross-sectional area of ~0.60m^2 (assuming it's square).

        Compare that to a GE CF6-50 [wikipedia.org], where the intake has a CSA of ~5.6m^2, almost 10x that of the Sukhoi.

        • by Max_W ( 812974 )
          Could be. But I also think that a leadership of a commercially successful company with time moves from engineers and scientists to political and marketing appointees. So basically they produce the same model from decades ago under a new name and slightly different shape.
    • by dbIII ( 701233 )

      Every other device has grills, why not jet engines?

      Way too hot for even George Foreman to cook on that grill.

      More seriously a grille cuts down on air flow, adds drag, adds weight and adds an extra failure mode. A 1950s jet engine can be hooked up to generate 20MW of electricity FFS so the more recent ones move vast amounts of air so that grille would have to be able to take a lot of force so would be heavy.

  • flying Muhammad drones of Jihad.

  • For those of you who did not bother to read the article:

    "The flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Heathrow, Europe's busiest hub, is believed to have struck a drone, the London Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The plane landed safely following the incident, which occurred around 12:50 p.m. local time."

    "British Airways said its engineers inspected the Airbus Group SE A320 airliner, found no damage, and cleared the plane to continue operating."

    So, again we have people getting worked up over drones

    • >Maybe we should get worked up about the dangers of Bird strike [wikipedia.org] and stop people from keeping or flying birds near airports.

      We already do. But since the number of people into Falconry and homing pigeon races (pretty much the only bird-related hobbies where the birds actually fly) are relatively little, you don't KNOW about the regulations that apply to them unless you're one of them.

  • A car, which costs ten thousand, has got a dashboard video camera recorder. A jet liner costs millions. Why not to install a video recorder too? So that we could have a clear picture of what happened.

    Pilots of modern manned aircraft have got very little to do during a flight, so no wonder that they may see things. I would prefer not words, but a proof.
  • by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Monday April 18, 2016 @02:48AM (#51930083)
    Just like other conspiracy cults before them, say flat earthers, anit-vaxxers, birthers, 9/11 conspiracy nutjobs, and UFO creeps, Slashdot is now home to the DDD: Drone Danger Denial cult.

    1) The first rule of DDD: drones cannot cause any problem ever in any situation.

    2) The second rule of DDD: always defend drones as harmless no matter what the circumstance. For example if firefighters call off aerial retardant drops because drones are flying in the fire zone: the missed drops didn't make any difference and/or drones didn't pose any interference and the authorities should have just kept flying.

    In the current post three of the major denial themes are stated.

    1) It wasn't a drone.

    2) If there was a drone, nothing happened.

    3) If there was a drone interaction, there was no actual damage.

    It's so simple even the dullest of Slashdot Pundits can execute it with ease.

    BTW, I've actually participated in a project with the FAA addressing bird strike mitigation. They take any physical impact on a aircraft very seriously. It's not just birds, but any strike by FOD (Foreign Object Debris). That includes anything on a runway, like trash. At DFW airport in Texas, they have a problem with foxes who live in the airport and are stuck by aircraft. They collect and monitor the corpses, and have a burial location for their bodies. The FAA has records of rodent strikes, when their carcasses are found on runways. Anything hitting a aircraft is considered very significant. Saying that it's not important is just a pledge of allegiance to the DDD. A true blue cult member.

  • Engines are already tested for bird strike. Start including light to moderately heavy drones and see if it's possible for them to damage the engines. I would think the mass of birds alone would make them far worse than a drone for an engine, even one with a GoPro attached.

  • Given they might not have been too bright in the first place and may also have insured their new toy, particularly as many get fitted with expensive digital cameras, someone just needs to browse the insurance claims from the area.

    If the camera memory survived and is found that could be some nice footage.

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