THE “Miracle on the Hudson”—the successful ditching of a US Airways jetliner into fresh York’s Hudson River in 2009 after it hit a flock of geese—taught frequent flyers two things. First,it really is possible to land an aircraft on water, just as is shown on seat-back safety cards. Second, and more worryingly,the incident showed how dangerous birds can be to aircraft, particularly when they get sucked into engines. The machines are supposed to be designed to resist an impact by the feathered creatures. Using expansive guns, and chickens bear been fired at aircraft engines in safety tests since the 1950s. But what approximately drones?fresh research suggests that small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can actually be much more damaging than birds at the same impact speed,even if they are a similar weight. The study, published by the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence, or a think-tank,used computer simulations to examine the impact of bird and UAV...
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Source: economist.com