
What Happens When a Drone Hits an Airplane Wing? [video] - protomyth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH0V7kp-xg0
======
sbradford26
The sheer amount of airplanes in the sky at anytime is incredible. Also
designated no fly zones can change and users may be unaware. So to avoid this
issue I think we need to do more than just depend on users knowing where they
can fly and not.

Drone collides with helicopter in a temporary flight restrictions (TFR) zone:
[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/drone-
collides-w...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/drone-collides-
with-us-army-helicopter-puts-1-5-dent-in-rotor/)

Map of all airplanes currently flying:
[https://www.flightradar24.com/40.21,-88.24/6](https://www.flightradar24.com/40.21,-88.24/6)

~~~
rootusrootus
That's really an ADS-B map, which is not actually all planes flying, at least
not yet. It's especially sparse for small private planes, which are probably
the most likely to find themselves tangling with a drone.

~~~
sokoloff
Prediction: There will never be a time when all air traffic is ADS-B out
equipped. It's certainly not a current mandate, and is only mandated for
aircraft desiring access to some select airspace after Jan 1, 2020. I will
equip, because I own a hangar inside the mode C veil of Boston, but if I were
6 miles farther out, I may very well choose to avoid class B/C airports and
not equip. Lots and lots of traffic will certainly make that choice.

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DominikPeters
I enjoyed that the expert's recommendation was not "regulation", but to change
drone design so they more easily break apart on impact. More likely to be
implemented and does not need enforcement on the consumer level.

~~~
cco
I would also support drone manufacturers self regulating via GPS deadzones in
designated no fly areas.

Nearly all drones of a meaningful size are GPS enabled and could be disabled
in range of a no fly zone. Yes it could be spoofed, yes it would require some
effort from manufactures, but self inflicted regulation as an industry here
could pay dividends if the alternative is ham fisted regulation following a
drone/airplane catastrophe.

~~~
NiekvdMaas
That's exactly what all major drones do. DJI has a market share of about 75%
[1] and you cannot take off any of their success in a restricted flight zone.
Flight zone updates are also mandatory and forced to the users. Same for
Yuneec, which has another 5% market share.

1\. [http://thedronegirl.com/2018/09/18/dji-market-
share/](http://thedronegirl.com/2018/09/18/dji-market-share/)

~~~
cco
Ah interesting, I didn't know!

------
ars
It made a hole and caused internal damage. But would not have taken down the
plane.

Recommendation to make drones "frangible", so they break on impact and do not
penetrate into the wing.

In comparison a bird crushed the wing surface but did not cause internal
damage.

~~~
CPLX
That was enough to take down a plane easily. Wings don't just sit there on the
ground like in the video, they support the fuselage of the plane against
serious aerodynamic forces.

They are under load, it's like taking out a bunch of columns at the ground
floor of a building. Not to mention that wings are full of fuel, as well as
the cables or hydraulic lines connected to the control surfaces.

~~~
jetrink
The engineer that conducted the test concluded that the plane would have been
able to survive the impact. However, he said that if the test were conducted
on a faster aircraft like a business jet, the results could be worse.

~~~
geoelectric
Realizing I should go watch the video, did he say at what height it would be
recoverable?

For example, there's been at least one high-profile plane crash in the past
(Lauda Flight 004) where a thrust reverser (diverts the jet output forward
instead of backwards, used to slow you down quick during landing) deployed
mid-flight. That should have been recoverable, but turns out Boeing only
projected outcome at low speeds and altitudes. The outcome at cruising
speeds/altitudes turned out to be far different and the plane went down.

While cruise wouldn't be an issue (don't think they get up that high!) I'd
expect the outcome of a drone hitting a flight control surface might vary
between takeoff, landing, and lowish-altitude holding.

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pmilla1606
I think 230mph is unrealistic for such tests. A quick google search shows
something between 70mph - 100mph on approach [1]. I doubt drones are found at
altitudes of aircraft at cruising speed.

I'm not saying that this isn't a concern but can somebody with actual aviation
knowledge (I have none) chime in and explain the 230mph figure?

1: [http://www.mooneyland.com/how-to-land-a-mooney-
properly/](http://www.mooneyland.com/how-to-land-a-mooney-properly/)

~~~
tlb
Landing speed for a loaded 737 can be up to 203 mph [0]. Among general
aviation, a Gulfstream 450 landing speed can be up to 186 mph at full weight
and high altitude. The drone itself can have some speed opposite to the
airplane. 230 mph is only a little conservative.

[0] [http://www.b737.org.uk/vspeeds.htm](http://www.b737.org.uk/vspeeds.htm)
Note that numbers are in knots.

[1]
[http://www.code7700.com/g450_vref.htm](http://www.code7700.com/g450_vref.htm)

~~~
pmilla1606
But surely a 737 wing is completely different to the one tested here?

I'd be very interested to see a 737 wing being tested like this.

~~~
falcolas
Completely different? No. Still mostly aluminum sheets riveted to spars with a
big ol' gas tank in them. Biggest difference is the control cables would be
mostly replaced with hydrolic lines.

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ejo4041
My brother actually hit a deer on takeoff a few years ago in Charlotte. It was
all over the news that day. It did not do as much damage as this drone did.
Mostly just dented in the face of the wing which caused fuel to leak out. It
was a little closer to the fuselage. That prompted an emergency landing.

~~~
bufferoverflow
How does a deer hit the wing? Aren't they rather high? A small plane that's
much slower on takeoff/landing than a commercial airliner?

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dsfyu404ed
This is not all that much more than the damage done by a Canadian goose. I
guess makes sense. The drone has to fly so it can't be built like a tank.

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k_sze
I'm just glad they used gelatin to simulate a bird. As soon as I heard the guy
say he wanted to compare the impact of a drone vs the impact of a bird, I was
mentally gasping. XD

I wonder if the results would have been different if they moulded the gelatin
into a bird shape (it's moulded as a cylinder in the video, if I'm not
mistaken) because then the pressure would have been different. Of course it
would probably have been harder to fire from the air pressure cannon.

The block of gelatin also didn't seem to have any hard bits embedded inside.
Real birds have bones. While small birds' bones aren't particularly tough, I'm
pretty sure the beaks of raptors and some nut-eating birds are tough stuff.

~~~
PaulKeeble
Initially plane parts (engines, wings, cockpits) were tested against dead
birds but nowadays we have so many live strikes every year that in practice we
know what the proxy based on gelatin is for a variety of birds.

Gelatin is harder than flesh but softer than bone and the overall effect is
that on average it has the same effect as birds because it is more like an
average representation. While parts of birds are relatively tough they aren't
in sufficient volume or weight to penetrate any more.

That isn't to say a bird strike isn't pretty dangerous because they can be.
Jet cockpits get severely damaged by them as do engines and you can see in the
video the effect on a wing.

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zokier
I guess it would depend on if it is this sort of drone:

[https://defensesystems.com/articles/2017/05/02/~/media/GIG/D...](https://defensesystems.com/articles/2017/05/02/~/media/GIG/Defense%20Systems/22mq25aboardaunnavyaircraftcarrier%201.jpg)

or this sort

[https://api.ning.com/files/LxgTrYw8IckDE2ljSVm61iv7MVev4tELr...](https://api.ning.com/files/LxgTrYw8IckDE2ljSVm61iv7MVev4tELr4SQs5fDfPCCGgJEr8F6wV9IgLRaqzvX8Yr8UMSmcYPmgNHxSTWad*1y1neY7WEV/DSC_8004.JPG)

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airuser0
It's similar to the question asked here before: "Can a dog kill a man with a
cane?". I personally accepted the answer:"Depends on the dog, depends on the
man, and depends on the cane".

~~~
saalweachter
“How is the dog holding the cane?”

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foxylad
I'm concerned that the test uses a static wing. If you drop a fishing float
directly in front of an obstacle in a river, it will be moved with the water
around the obstacle, not hitting it.

Air is a lot less dense than water, but my instinct is that unless the drone
hit a very narrow sweet spot it would simply be swept around the wing. And
even in that sweet spot, there will be a buffer of compressed air that would
substantially slow the impact.

Could someone with more knowledge of fluid dynamics comment on the
applicability of static tests like this to actual aircraft damage?

~~~
grogers
Does a baseball move out of the way of the swinging bat? There might be some
small effect, but it's not the dominant one. In this scenario the wing is just
a slightly bigger bat, and the drone is a slightly bigger ball. It would of
course take a very (un)lucky strike to collide dead on like this, but not that
unreasonable. I do hope they test indirect strikes too though.

~~~
jessriedel
I think you're probably right, but note that even for a powerful hitter, bat
speed is ~80 mph. This is significantly less than 238 mph used in the video as
a typical airplane speed.

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mothsonasloth
A year ago I saw someone flying a drone from the top of the Shard building in
London. The person was promptly told to land his drone immediately by the
security. However the scary thing for me is that the smaller business planes
and commercial plane that fly into London city go really close to the Shard on
their approach.

So definitely a collision is now a real risk

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JoblessWonder
Interesting experiment. Looks like a lot of fun to use that air cannon to
blast things at things.

That aircraft doesn't have any de-icing equipment so it is basically just
sheet metal where it hit. I'd be curious to see what would happen if it ran
into a wing with than just a thin skin.

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secabeen
I don't know that much about air dynamics. How likely is it that a drone would
strike exactly on the leading edge of a wing, as opposed to passing just over
or just under the wing?

~~~
gist
Also (along the lines of air dynamics) I am wondering about whether an
airplane has a force in the direction it is traveling in and if that force
does push anything small out of the way.

As a small example if I have a pot in my hand and I move it in the direction
of a tissue the tissue will move. So we have a very large airplane wing moving
in the direction of a much smaller drone and the test does not simulate that
at all.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Two things:

1\. Airplane wings are designed _not_ to "push" forward on the air in front of
them. That's drag and airplanes are designed to minimize it.

2\. What little air _is_ pushed forward is only going to be affected by the
oncoming wing a few inches in front of the wing, and at 230 mph closing speed
that doesn't provide nearly enough time for the force of the oncoming air to
move the drone out of the way.

~~~
gist
Thanks. But one question. What is the chance that a drone in the path of an
airplane will not be impacted by the force of some other object on, or design
of, the plane that is not the wing? For example the engine or the landing gear
(small plane) or the fuselage? So we hover a drone in front of a small plane
and will the small plane hit the drone? And if a larger jet will the drone
remain in place or move out of the way by some force (not the wing).

And remenber that the drone has to exactly strike in a particular way.

As an example (of 'in a particular way') think of a nail on the road. The nail
needs to be in exactly the right position to puncture a modern tire. That only
happens in a very small amount of cases (or with a screw). Normally if it
doesn't randomly happen the nail or screw gets pushed aside and does not
puncture the tire. [1]

This is not a statement based on expertise I am just offering another point to
consider and am curious.

[1] This I think is what happens with a paper cut sharp edge and precise
angle.

~~~
dreamcompiler
At high closing speed, the determiner is whether the drone is in front of some
part of the plane as the plane approaches. It's not going to be "pushed out of
the way" because there just isn't time.

Think about moths hitting the windshield of your car. They weigh thousands of
times less than your car, yet they still routinely splat on your windshield as
you're going down the highway. Why? Why doesn't the air flowing around your
car push them out of the way?

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cde-v
I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen anyone try to take down a plane by
flying a drone into an engine on takeoff.

~~~
stordoff
I was discussing this with someone a few weeks ago, and swarms of drones
(flying in formation) are a concern, and the only thing really stopping it is
that no one has tried (as neuralRiot says).

Unfortunately, I don't really know how you would prevent it.

~~~
baddox
I’m sure it could be done, but I’m also willing to bet there are even easier
ways to threaten airplanes that don’t involve relatively new consumer
products.

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arwhatever
We need to set about reinforcing the leading edges of airplane surfaces. :-)

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mrguyorama
I wonder how easy it would be to make drones have a stronger radar signal?
It's probably not nice to clutter up the displays of ATC, but it would be I
think a more direct solution for controlled airspace

~~~
philip1209
Radar reflectors are common on certain aircraft or even boats:

[https://www.gaelforcemarine.co.uk/en/GB/Trem-IOR-Radar-
Refle...](https://www.gaelforcemarine.co.uk/en/GB/Trem-IOR-Radar-
Reflector/m-3603.aspx?PartnerID=22&utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=UnitedKingdom&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw8Sn6fvq3QIVCpPtCh3ArgWNEAQYASABEgKoefD_BwE)

They used to equip some stealth aircraft during training with them so they
could be more easily tracked.

~~~
Scramblejams
Stealth aircraft deploy them whenever they’re operating in civilian airspace
so they can integrate into the existing radar-based ATC infrastructure.

They’re called Luneburg Lenses:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luneburg_lens](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luneburg_lens)

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jessaustin
This type of incident seems unlikely to happen by accident.

~~~
SteveNuts
Against a commercial airliner you'd pretty much have to be flying right near
the runway of the airport, but for a GA Cessna those can be flying pretty much
anywhere.

I can easily see how a small plane could accidentally hit a drone.

~~~
jessaustin
If you're talking about the Cessna planes I think you're talking about, this
test doesn't apply because those don't travel at 238 mph. Actually I think
that speed is typically subject to altitude requirements that would exclude
most drones?

But also we're talking about tiny objects traveling through a giant 3-D space.
If they meet, it was on purpose.

~~~
deckar01
4D. Space + time. The odds of a collision are astronomically low outside of an
airport's restricted zone. There are 1.5 billion cubic miles of atmosphere
between the Earth and the maximum altitude of a commercial jet (7.8 miles).

~~~
Dylan16807
In 4D the drone is not "travelling through", it's instead a static and
_enormously_ long curve that has to avoid touching any other aircraft curve at
any point.

