Typically a heavy will be going 120 to 140 knots on final. There's no way someone could see a drone right off the wingtip.Great Pumpkin said:One of the airline pilots said the UAV was one foot off the end of his wing tip. Really? What is the landing speed of a "heavy"? Could a UAV keep up with a landing heavy long enough for the heavy pilot to keep sight of the UAV? And what would a UAV do to a heavy's wing if the two collided?
A paint smudge. Odds are it wouldn't even be noticed until the next maintenance cycle. I flew jump-seat in a Dash-9 and when we left the aircraft there was a lot of bird feathers and guts in the nacelle of number 2. No one in the cockpit had any clue that we had a bird strike. Fortunately as a guest in the jump seat, I was not a required crew member, so I didn't have to fill out the paperwork for the company.And what would a UAV do to a heavy's wing if the two collided?
Yes and no. Air Traffic Control radar can see primary returns, but they don't normally have their screens in that mode. Entirely too much clutter. They are only looking at transponder returns from aircraft "in the system", or more specifically on an IFR clearance or participating VFR aircraft receiving radar advisories. Other transponder equipped aircraft will set their transponder to the VFR code of "1200", which is normally filtered so that the controller doesn't see those aircraft. (If a 1200 return would cause a conflict with another target on the controller's screen, it will come up flashing "CA" for Conflict Alert). Some airports are experimenting with doppler radar to detect birds in the airport vicinity.Greyfox51 said:I don't know for sure, but I imagine such a large concentration of geese would show up on radar, and a warning issued of the potential hazard to pilots?
SteveMann said:Typically a heavy will be going 120 to 140 knots on final. There's no way someone could see a drone right off the wingtip.Great Pumpkin said:One of the airline pilots said the UAV was one foot off the end of his wing tip. Really? What is the landing speed of a "heavy"? Could a UAV keep up with a landing heavy long enough for the heavy pilot to keep sight of the UAV? And what would a UAV do to a heavy's wing if the two collided?
A paint smudge. Odds are it wouldn't even be noticed until the next maintenance cycle. I flew jump-seat in a Dash-9 and when we left the aircraft there was a lot of bird feathers and guts in the nacelle of number 2. No one in the cockpit had any clue that we had a bird strike. Fortunately as a guest in the jump seat, I was not a required crew member, so I didn't have to fill out the paperwork for the company.And what would a UAV do to a heavy's wing if the two collided?
This was not our plane but it's very similar to what we saw:
What part of "This was not our plane but it's very similar to what we saw:" did you miss?jimandsue60 said:I can not for sure say but that looks like more like a Beechcraft King Air/series nacelle than a -9 nacelle, not that it matters to your point.