Bird Strikes can cause aircraft to crash

[robert551069]

Birds entering a jet engine can destroy it and cause the plane to crash.
I wonder if it would be possible to mount a freewheeling,four bladed propeller in front of the jet engine to destroy the birds before they are ingested into the jet engine. (The propeller would be driven by the wind in the same way that a Dutch windmill turns in the wind)

[vivandorron]

I can't understand why jet engines do not have a grille on them to prevent birds being sucked into them.

Ron.

[jomifl]

Perhaps a set of blades so that they come out the back diced and roasted. I can see that ryanair would go for that :-)

[rov1100]

Maybe they should make a law banning the use of landfill sites near to airports. Stansted has at least 2 landfill sites within about 2 miles of the runway.

[MASS1961]

Ha, love that jomifl, anything for a quick euro

[Old_Geezer]

Your cutting blades are unliklely to cut fine enough to avoid making the engine blades just so many particles.

Wouldn't your propeller get sucked in too ?

[wildwood]

I asked this a few years ago and one knowledgeable person said it has been tried but it would not work.

My thought was that a grill would work too, but apparently not so.

[DocSausage]

Bit late, but the maximum speed of an Airbus A380 is just short of 600mph; a male canada goose weighs about 14lb.

Turbine blades withstand immense forces in operation yet a large birdstrike will totally wreck an engine all the way through to the exhaust pipe

Any grill or propeller would have to to be robust enough to stop the bird getting through but open enough to allow the massive amount of air into the engine, for instance a RR Trent 1000 sucks in a ton and a quarter of air per second.

Also, having stopped the bird, where is it going to go? It's going to be sucked against the grill potentially blocking airflow into the engine which can choke the engine but other systems rely on positive air pressure like engine oil seals and cooling.

Instead the focus is on making the engine as robust as possible and looking at how they're mounted on the airframe to avoid ingesting debris and as Rov1100 says not building runways near landfills or migration and nesting sites or anywhere where you'll get flocks of birds.

[douglas9401]

Aaaaaaaaaahh, I see where the problem is. You've all been working on a grill when you should be thinking about a grille. Or not.