BBC slagging drones

[sar104]

10 ways to prevent plane bird strikes

Hardly a week goes by without a plane somewhere in the US making an emergency landing after hitting birds. As these incidents reach record levels, airports are coming up with increasingly imaginative ways of combating them.

www.bbc.co.uk

Check #8. The Chicken Gun.

It must be the truthful fact, it is reported by that most trusted source ... the BBC. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
I am pretty certain that there really was a tv programme a while back about testing RR Aero Engines to destruction. One of the tests was relative to bird strike and involved doing things to a ridiculously fast chookie. This was a long time before I became interested in uav’s. So it wasn’t what I could call a false memory. Mention is made about the FAA being a source of the Birdie Boom Boom.

Wiki quote, “During the development of the Boeing 757, the cockpit windows were subjected to a "chicken test", where "an anesthetized 4-pound [1.8 kg] chicken was loaded in a pneumatic gun and fired at 360 knots [410 mph; 670 km/h] head-on".[2] It is described as "a very messy test."[2] ??

Another factoid on that page, most bird strikes happen below 500’ ... spot the crossover with uav altitude.

Cheers, Alan.

Yes - as the BBC article accurately states, they used thawed chickens. The chicken cannon story in post #18 referred to the use of frozen chickens, and was completely fictional.

 

[Shoot4fun]

He was

It was a bit distressing to see him breaking it up with a hammer. He was surprised just how tough the casing was though.

He was probably scared it would spontaneously combust or something. Ya know, since we all pack a little C-4 in our drones in case we need to dive bomb something, or blow up a neighbor who's an a$$hole... I mean, you guys do too, right? Or, is that just me...? ?

 

[Shoot4fun]

Yes - as the BBC article accurately states, they used thawed chickens. The chicken cannon story in post #18 referred to the use of frozen chickens, and was completely fictional.

Well, I can see the writing on the wall... Birds, be they plastic or feathered, are soon to be outlawed. Just too dangerous! ??
I'm sorry. I think social media is the downfall of our civilization, and the younger generations are too eager to jump on any bandwagon what rolls by that may garner them their 15 minutes of fame. Just my opinion. ?
And no, I don't mean ALL of the younger generations. Just most 'em...

 

[sar104]

Well, I can see the writing on the wall... Birds, be they plastic or feathered, are soon to be outlawed. Just too dangerous! ??
I'm sorry. I think social media is the downfall of our civilization, and the younger generations are too eager to jump on any bandwagon what rolls by that may garner them their 15 minutes of fame. Just my opinion. ?
And no, I don't mean ALL of the younger generations. Just most 'em...

I have to agree with you on the social media issue. Apart from all its other downsides, surveys have indicated that a very large fraction of the population use social media as their primary source of news. And since those people interact primarily with like-minded users on those platforms, it simply escalates confirmation bias to previously impossible levels, and anything that threatens that worldview is just dismissed as fake news. Worse still, that strategy is horribly vulnerable to being hijacked by the kind of disinformation campaigns of actual fake news that are now becoming so prevalent, aided by the observations that well-crafted fake news spreads faster and further on social media, on average, than real news.

 

[Shoot4fun]

And it's only going to get worse!

 

[Shoot4fun]

Yes - as the BBC article accurately states, they used thawed chickens. The chicken cannon story in post #18 referred to the use of frozen chickens, and was completely fictional.

I dunno about you guys, but I've NEVER seen a chicken fly 500 feet high. That WASN'T fired from a cannon, anyway...

 

[sar104]

I dunno about you guys, but I've NEVER seen a chicken fly 500 feet high. That WASN'T fired from a cannon, anyway...

Chickens are limited to 400 ft AGL. That's what people are saying, anyway....

 

[Shoot4fun]

10 ways to prevent plane bird strikes

Hardly a week goes by without a plane somewhere in the US making an emergency landing after hitting birds. As these incidents reach record levels, airports are coming up with increasingly imaginative ways of combating them.

www.bbc.co.uk

Check #8. The Chicken Gun.

It must be the truthful fact, it is reported by that most trusted source ... the BBC. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
I am pretty certain that there really was a tv programme a while back about testing RR Aero Engines to destruction. One of the tests was relative to bird strike and involved doing things to a ridiculously fast chookie. This was a long time before I became interested in uav’s. So it wasn’t what I could call a false memory. Mention is made about the FAA being a source of the Birdie Boom Boom.

Wiki quote, “During the development of the Boeing 757, the cockpit windows were subjected to a "chicken test", where "an anesthetized 4-pound [1.8 kg] chicken was loaded in a pneumatic gun and fired at 360 knots [410 mph; 670 km/h] head-on".[2] It is described as "a very messy test."[2] ??

Another factoid on that page, most bird strikes happen below 500’ ... spot the crossover with uav altitude.

Cheers, Alan.

Birdie Boom Boom. I like it. Honey? Found the name for our next kid...!!! ???

 

[Crabman]

I watched the whole programme. Could someone forward a link for it to Adam Savage and Jamie Hynemann, I'm sure they'd get a good laugh out of this! The impact experiment was laughable at best! They fired ballistics gel at an old aircraft wing part to demonstrate the air cannon, and then proceeded to dismantle a Phantom, insert it in to a cartridge to fit the cannon, reinforce it with carbon rods and then fired that in to the same, already damaged, wing! By that logic I can prove the lethal potential of pretty much anything from an autumn leaf to an accordion or whatever...

And what about the shooting range bit? This shell shocked "sniper" presenter proved reliably that he wouldn't hit the water if he fell out of a boat! Couldn't hit a white Phantom hovering against a green background at 200m despite looking through a pretty pimp scope! There's a few Americans on this forum and, dare i say, more than one I could trust to blast the testicles off a dragon fly with a 7.62 at the same distance, probably without a scope!

And what about the FPV bit. The presenter was terrified at the precision of the pilot's flying. How would he react to a demo by Alan Szabo Jr. with his T-Rex helis? Why did they choose a bunch of parked aircraft as the setting for the shoot when there are drone race courses they could have done it at.

Don't get me wrong, drones can be, and are, misused but this was entirely one sided, leaving little in the way of options for non drone users but to dislike the hobby in all its aspects!

 

[AuldGimpy]

There's a few Americans on this forum and, dare i say, more than one I could trust to blast the testicles off a dragon fly with a 7.62 at the same distance, probably without a scope!

And what about the FPV bit. The presenter was terrified at the precision of the pilot's flying. How would he react to a demo by Alan Szabo Jr. with his T-Rex helis? Why did they choose a bunch of parked aircraft as the setting for the shoot when there are drone race courses they could have done it at.

Don't get me wrong, drones can be, and are, misused but this was entirely one sided, leaving little in the way of options for non drone users but to dislike the hobby in all its aspects!

Booo! Unfair to dragonflies!

Parked aeroplanes to re-enforce the public perception and association of drones with wrecked aircraft. I know for a fact that seeing drone racing as an actual sport certainly got me interested in uav’s. It was not the thought “Ooh! I could cause a lot of mayhem with one of these, weaponised or not.”


There was one clip showing an actual warzone where a slow prowling, grenade carrying drone looking for a rooftop troop target. But at what looked like less than 25 yards no-one on camera managed to shoot it down. It was about the only scenario where the Drone War ray guns would have been relevant to drones being a threat.
OK for us sitting on our butts to criticise but these were professional soldiers. It was a short clip and maybe it didn’t fit the line of the story showing it being shot down.

Conspiracy theory # 1.
The flying poly bag(s) at Gatwick (I still say it was crowd hysteria) was a plot by the military and UK government to justify having already overspent by £m/billions on developing these seek/track/destroy weapons. How the arms manufactures were able to design, engineer and have working DJI P4 killers so soon was stunningly efficient. I just wonder how long it will take them to scale it down to a portable version.
I doubt they snaffled the camera eye from a Predator Drone to test it mounted on a buggy .... or did they? [emoji848]??

When I was a lot younger and a lot dafter, myself and a couple of mates would do this in Glasgow Central.
First set ourselves apart and accidentally bump into each other. Pal #1 would be looking slightly puzzled looking at something in the high girders.
Pal #2 would bump in look up and ask what he was looking at. Being unable to see what it was, pal #1 would point excitedly. Just as Pal#3 bumped on the scene, he too would look up and not see anything at first. With pals #1 #2 getting more excited pal #3 would eventually point and nod excitedly.
You guessed it, as we slunk away one at a time there was a crowd of 50 plus pointing out to each other at the girders which may or may not had possibly a pigeon or nothing at all. We of course were howling with laughter at the end of the station.

Try it. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

[sar104]

I watched the whole programme. Could someone forward a link for it to Adam Savage and Jamie Hynemann, I'm sure they'd get a good laugh out of this! The impact experiment was laughable at best! They fired ballistics gel at an old aircraft wing part to demonstrate the air cannon, and then proceeded to dismantle a Phantom, insert it in to a cartridge to fit the cannon, reinforce it with carbon rods and then fired that in to the same, already damaged, wing! By that logic I can prove the lethal potential of pretty much anything from an autumn leaf to an accordion or whatever...

I think you are mistaken - there were no "carbon rods", as far as I could see, involved in the experiment. The components were held in place by a very weak foam adhesive that will have had no effect on the impact dynamics, and it was fired into an undamaged part of the wing. From a physics point of view the experiment was reasonable.

And what about the shooting range bit? This shell shocked "sniper" presenter proved reliably that he wouldn't hit the water if he fell out of a boat! Couldn't hit a white Phantom hovering against a green background at 200m despite looking through a pretty pimp scope! There's a few Americans on this forum and, dare i say, more than one I could trust to blast the testicles off a dragon fly with a 7.62 at the same distance, probably without a scope!

Are you sure that you actually watched this? The problem was that the Phantom was not completely stationary - the slight unpredicable movements as it held station were enough to cause the misses. And he hit it at 200 m, although even at that range it required a bit of luck.

 

[sar104]

There was one clip showing an actual warzone where a slow prowling, grenade carrying drone looking for a rooftop troop target. But at what looked like less than 25 yards no-one on camera managed to shoot it down. It was about the only scenario where the Drone War ray guns would have been relevant to drones being a threat.
OK for us sitting on our butts to criticise but these were professional soldiers. It was a short clip and maybe it didn’t fit the line of the story showing it being shot down.

They were not professional soldiers - they were poorly trained mercenaries firing short bursts from in its general direction, without even aiming.

 

[Crabman]

I think you are mistaken - there were no "carbon rods", as far as I could see, involved in the experiment. The components were held in place by a very weak foam adhesive that will have had no effect on the impact dynamics, and it was fired into an undamaged part of the wing. From a physics point of view the experiment was reasonable.



Are you sure that you actually watched this? The problem was that the Phantom was not completely stationary - the slight unpredicable movements as it held station were enough to cause the misses. And he hit it at 200 m, although even at that range it required a bit of luck.

I'm not the only one who saw the carbon rods. Read this open letter to the BBC from DJI

IN FULL: DJI's 2,300-word letter to BBC boss Tony Hall

The manufacturer uses the letter to criticise the BBC's recent television documentaries and general reporting on drones.

www.commercialdroneprofessional.com

 

[sar104]

I'm not the only one who saw the carbon rods. Read this open letter to the BBC from DJI

IN FULL: DJI's 2,300-word letter to BBC boss Tony Hall

The manufacturer uses the letter to criticise the BBC's recent television documentaries and general reporting on drones.

www.commercialdroneprofessional.com

Good spot - those do look like carbon rods.

That said, I doubt that they had much effect on the impact dynamics. Two of them were deflected over the wing on impact and played no significant part, while the lower two followed the battery into the wing.

They are very low density, however, compared to the other components, and for rigid-object impacts, density is the dominating parameter. I suspect that they were used to prevent the component package from starting to disperse in flight after the sabot is stripped at the end of the barrel. Not ideal, but possibly the simplest practical solution.

Thanks for linking to the DJI letter. It's about what I expected. I tend to agree with their assessment of the tone of the documentary in general but, in the letter's comments on impact testing, I can't really tell whether they simply don't understand this field of science or whether it is a deliberate attempt to muddy the water. Probably a combination since I doubt that they have a team of physicists in this discipline. Their "Frankendrone" allusion is as unscientific as it gets and is clearly an attempt to convince the layman, and I don't see a single valid point in that part of the letter.

 

[Crabman]

Good spot - those do look like carbon rods.

View attachment 112601

That said, I doubt that they had much effect on the impact dynamics. Two of them were deflected over the wing on impact and played no significant part, while the lower two followed the battery into the wing.

View attachment 112602

They are very low density, however, compared to the other components, and for rigid-object impacts, density is the dominating parameter. I suspect that they were used to prevent the component package from starting to disperse in flight after the sabot is stripped at the end of the barrel. Not ideal, but possibly the simplest practical solution.

Thanks for linking to the DJI letter. It's about what I expected. I tend to agree with their assessment of the tone of the documentary in general but, in the letter's comments on impact testing, I can't really tell whether they simply don't understand this field of science or whether it is a deliberate attempt to muddy the water. Probably a combination since I doubt that they have a team of physicists in this discipline. Their "Frankendrone" allusion is as unscientific as it gets and is clearly an attempt to convince the layman, and I don't see a single valid point in that part of the letter.

I must admit I agree with DJI on that part, as well as the rest of the letter.
They stripped all the heavy bits off the drone and condensed it all in to a high velocity lump. Surely that will have more impact than a drone in its original form where the load is spread across the structure. I'm seeing it as walking through snow in stilettos as opposed to snow shoes.

 

[sar104]

I must admit I agree with DJI on that part, as well as the rest of the letter.
They stripped all the heavy bits off the drone and condensed it all in to a high velocity lump. Surely that will have more impact than a drone in its original form where the load is spread across the structure. I'm seeing it as walking through snow in stilettos as opposed to snow shoes.

If you stacked all the dense components so that they all hit in exactly the same place then yes - that would be a more severe test. In this case however, as you can see in the high-speed video, they are somewhat distributed at impact. And note that the result was pretty much identical to the University of Dayton test that was conducted with an intact Phantom.

 

[Crabman]

If you stacked all the dense components so that they all hit in exactly the same place then yes - that would be a more severe test. In this case however, as you can see in the high-speed video, they are somewhat distributed at impact. And note that the result was pretty much identical to the University of Dayton test that was conducted with an intact Phantom.

But wasn't this test subject to some scrutiny as well? As far as I can remember they fired the drone at the wing of a light aircraft at speeds that exceeded even that of an airliner during descent. It basically showed the worst conceivable outcome of a collision and wasn't exactly super accurate.

Don't get me wrong, I think flying anywhere near aircraft/airports is the most wholesomely idiotic thing a drone pilot can do and it must be stamped out. An hour with a shell shocked ex-sniper scaremongering is not the way though!

 

[sar104]

But wasn't this test subject to some scrutiny as well? As far as I can remember they fired the drone at the wing of a light aircraft at speeds that exceeded even that of an airliner during descent. It basically showed the worst conceivable outcome of a collision and wasn't exactly super accurate.

Don't get me wrong, I think flying anywhere near aircraft/airports is the most wholesomely idiotic thing a drone pilot can do and it must be stamped out. An hour with a shell shocked ex-sniper scaremongering is not the way though!

DJI did object to that one too, as mentioned in this recent letter. But the impact velocity was about the same, and within the airspeed range of the aircraft type used. These tests do intend to show the worst possible outcome - that's how conservative testing works. All safety testing is done in worst-case conditions.

 

[dreddman]

I saw it as well yes they can cause damage but its not the machine ..... its only a machine ... its the idiot operator .... its like there is no such thing as a bad breed of dog .... there are only bad owners ..... guns kill people ... no people kill people ........ be responsible

 

[cheddarman]

I know it's a bunch of hot air, but I know quite a few deer hunters here in West Virginia that could knock it down at 300 meters. We have shooting ranges everywhere. Most are in our own backyards.Even our university which is 20 miles from me, is way ahead of every other college in the NCAA for national Rifle championships. We start really young here.? Yes the people here are very friendly and I don't worry about crime like I did in Florida. Don't even think about breaking into someone's house here. Big mistake.

Very few people in the United Kingdom have access to a rifle or even a shot gun so the drones are pretty safe. It is also illegal to shoot down a drone, or any others UAV unless you're police/military under orders!