Originally Posted by
Sport_Pilot
BS any modern airline can fly all day long on one engine. Also the newer engines are designed to take 8 pound birds and keep running. Nt saying it will be perfectly smooth, but will still produce useable power. Most drones weigh much less than 8 pounds. But regardless for the old planes often used for firefighting your point is valid. But also valid for bird strikes. I bet there were a lot more birds around than the several drones sighted, and the birds are less likely to get out of the way!
I agree, they are designed to fly on one engine. The catch is that, while they are designed to fly on one engine, they are tested WITH AN ENGINE DROPPED TO GROUND IDLE, NOT DAMAGED AND UNBALANCED FOR SAFETY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Once again, you're comparing apples to coconuts. Try this little experiment and see what your results are:
1) Take a chicken leg bone and try to break it in two with your bare hands. For the average person, this isn't too difficult
2) Take a piece of 3/8 to 1/2" thick 6061 aluminum tube with a sidewall between .030 and .050 thick, that should put you in the size and strength range used in the average quad. Now, just like with the chicken bone, try to break it with your bare hands. You may bend it but I doubt you will break it.
Now, for experiment number two:
1) Take a piece of raw chicken breast and try to cut it with a piece of 1/8 thick aluminum plate or bar stock with a radius'd edge, Not too difficult but not as easy as a sharp knife
2) Take that same piece of radius'd aluminum and try to cut through a dead battery pack along with a receiver case. Not the same result, is it?
These two experiments demonstrate the difference between a bird going through the fan and a mid sized quad. What you have to remember is ALL MODERN ENGINES ARE HIGH BYPASS TURBOFANS. This means that they are no more than a turboprop in a sleeve, using more blades and at a higher rpm. Once those blades are gone, and they will be once they start hitting that sleeve due to imbalance, that engine will become nothing but drag producing no significant thrust, no electricity and no hydraulic pressure since between 85 and 90% of the trust comes from the front fan and, upon being damaged, an experienced crew would shut it down. Unfortunately, it wouldn't stop that fan from spinning and destroying itself due to airflow through the sleeve.
The older planes you referred to use a narrower low bypass turbine, meaning that 85% of the thrust comes THROUGH the engine. A bird into it was likely to cause that engine to fail within seconds for that reason