Question About Last Thursday's Plane Splash

[Teenage_Machinist]

LOL! lolcats on the forum! Internet memes go mainstream... Hey, it rhymes.

[Liger Zero]

LOL! lolcats on the forum! Internet memes go mainstream... Hey, it rhymes.

Well now that the "old folks" are using LOLcats I guess they are no longer hip and cool. Time to find another meme.

*dives for bomb-shelter*

[lazlo]

I see your ***** cat and raise you a 85lb psychotic pitt bulldog.. Surely not this 100lb wimp snoring on my couch thou. He hides behind me when loud noises happen.

David, if you're going to up the ante, you have to have a goofy picture like Willy's

OKAY.. wanna talk real fast in poor engineering?? how about a ducted fan jet engine, the ducts have flappers that dump anything ingested be it flat-top carrier crewman or bird that travels down the duct??

What do you expect David, the Harrier's a British design

Seriously, we're still de-bugging the anti-grav lifters, so how else would you do it? The new F-35 VTOL operates the same way: there's a ducted fan behind the cockpit.

[wierdscience]

W......ell geese seriously effect the flow into the engine, don't they ?

would there be a need for them to be so fine and massive as that one in the test pad

they could have holes inch by inch ...with sharp edges like a fries cutting machine.

then geese would be chopped up into inch chunks that the engine could survive .

all the best.markj

Whatever the intake was covered with would quickly starve off air flow considering any mesh of any size would decrease the area from 100% to some percentage less.This not to mention all the voticies the mesh would introduce.The mesh in that ball is 3/4" IIRC,last summer was the last time I was near it.

Then we create another problem,what happens when this screen breaks?

Basically there is no simple solution to what seems like a simple problem.

[dp]

Intake screens are not an impossibility but probably not worth the expense:

http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/138111.html

[lazlo]

Most Russian fighters (MiG-29, Su-27,...) have intake covers that are deployed during taxi and takeoff. Air is pulled in from vents above the engine intake.



Much higher resolution version here:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Poland---Air-Force/Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-29A-(9-12A)/1386939/L/

[Evan]

The reason for that is because all their runways are crumbling.

[tony ennis]

...and their best customers are 3rd world despotic dirtbags that can't build or maintain a modern runway.





The US only sells weapons to 3rd world despotic dirtbags who CAN maintain runways!

[J Tiers]

It makes sense to me to guard the intakes as the Russkies do..... opens up more options........

I thought about the various approaches....... Screens are obvious non-starters.... The screen necessary even withstand impact of birds at 2 or 3 hundred knots is just way too heavy to be considered seriously.

Some helicopters have sand-removing intakes, which spin or otherwise change air direction to drop out heavy items.

The stealth fighters have intakes that are not directly forward-facing, and the concept has the potential to exclude heavy or massive items (relative to air).

But all of these solutions have energy and weight costs. YOU are cheaper in the long run. A few people are killed, but in general the results of NO protection are likely a net positive, per operational analysis.

And, as we see, not every maximum-case bird strike results in fatalities. Apparently both engines lost essentially all thrust at about 3200 feet, according to the paper today.

It doesn't get a lot worse than that.... except maybe losing thrust at Orange County, where steep climb rules are in force for noise abatement... just as you enter the climb. That sounds considerably worse.

[dp]

Some lunacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade

Bears kill 52

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i_GYUHMQY_QDL5v3q0okVIb2mKkQD95PSVG02

Geese kill zero

Response: Kill the geese, there's too many of them.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01172009/news/regionalnews/hey__geese__get_150594.htm

Response: Save the polar bears

http://www.polarbearsos.org/

[wierdscience]

Most Russian fighters (MiG-29, Su-27,...) have intake covers that are deployed during taxi and takeoff. Air is pulled in from vents above the engine intake.

Much higher resolution version here:

A turbojet can breathe through the top of the wing and produce thrust where a turbofan cannot since the engine is used instead to spin a fan which produces thrust.That air flow problem again.

I suppose you could design a plane with doors to do just that,but building a wing with an 8-11' diameter hole in it would be difficult

Best and probably cheapest solution-

[J Tiers]

A turbojet can breathe through the top of the wing and produce thrust where a turbofan cannot since the engine is used instead to spin a fan which produces thrust.That air flow problem again.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a pure turbojet these days..... virtually everything flying is a turbofan engine...... They look just the same, other than the larger intake, and they virtually ARE the same...... You could, at the risk of terribly offending the ME types, say that a turbofan is a turbojet with extreme amounts of compressor air bleed.........

But the fan is run on a separate shaft, the familiar compressor and turbine are used as a gas generator for the fan turbine, with some actual jet thrust. originally the fan was just an augmentation to the jet thrust. But if you look at new aircraft like the 767, or Airbus planes, the fan is the main feature, the large fan duct forms the main apparent bulk of the engine. I don't know the exact thrust ratio fan vs jet.

[steve45]

Firstly, the outcome and expertise of the handling of the incident is to be applauded and congratulated and shows the skill and dedication of the whole of the aircrew involved.

BUT, the pilot does in fact run training exercises in flying disaster management, has had an initial training regime far in excess of a "Normal" airline pilot, and lets face it, he is paid to be able to safely drive an unatural mode of public transport. It never ceased to amaze me when landing in bad weather conditions (Rain and Blow) how passengers clap as soon as the wheels hit the deck? This is the guys JOB, we don't do it through lack of skill or capability, how would he fare tuning a carb or setting a manual machine to make a ballturner.

I'm not trying to detract from the bravery, but he did exactly what many with far less training and flying hours did in driving "Horsa's" and "Hotsper's"

Regards Ian.

I have to agree. I applaud Sully's great performance, but as a former charter pilot, I know he was just doing what he was trained to do. I'm sure he called upon his glider experience, too (I also hold a glider certificate).

I think the fact that he went down in a calm river, as opposed to open water with large waves, played a major role in the successful outcome. If there had been 10 foot waves, the results could have been really bad.

[wierdscience]

You'd be hard-pressed to find a pure turbojet these days..... virtually everything flying is a turbofan engine...... They look just the same, other than the larger intake, and they virtually ARE the same...... You could, at the risk of terribly offending the ME types, say that a turbofan is a turbojet with extreme amounts of compressor air bleed.........

But the fan is run on a separate shaft, the familiar compressor and turbine are used as a gas generator for the fan turbine, with some actual jet thrust. originally the fan was just an augmentation to the jet thrust. But if you look at new aircraft like the 767, or Airbus planes, the fan is the main feature, the large fan duct forms the main apparent bulk of the engine. I don't know the exact thrust ratio fan vs jet.

The picture showed a fighter jet,the last bastion of a pure turbojet.

Looked at some Rolls product last summer,nice big titainium composite fan,blades have hollow crossection.Don't remember the number but the fan even though it was pushing 9' in diameter was very light.

Here's a Trent 900 eating chicken-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSafRuLB0c0

And a destructive test,9 million pounds,down the tubes-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j973645y5AA&eurl=http://iagblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/destroying-trent-900.html

[J Tiers]

The picture showed a fighter jet,the last bastion of a pure turbojet.

Nope..... t'ain't so.......... most if not all current fighters have some form of turbofan engine....... naturally not an extreme high bypass geared fan like a slower commercial aircraft..... but a turbofan nonetheless.

They are useful up into the supersonic speed range.