Yeah. What I’m getting at is that whoever did that almost certainly broke a bunch of regs.
I’m not sure what a small drone would do to a large aircraft. I’d rather hit a small drone than a Canada Goose. But there are some really big quadcopters out there that would wreck your day.
So does running the radio stack for somebody else count as crew duty time for your company?
@Magiver:
At least at my employer, there’s an explicit prohibition in the Big Book against using any deadheading or non-revving crewmembers as extra workers. Pilots or FAs. This is more of a factor on long-haul international where any extra crew you could “borrow” from the passenger list would let the actual working crew get more sleep along the way.
The reasoning is exactly as you allude to, that there’s no way to track the work performed for FAR rest & duty reg compliance. Of course there’s always an out in an emergency, such as the one SWA experienced.
As collision speeds of 150-250 knots, how stiff the object is matters a lot. And one concern is the metal backbone of a drone and the concentrated mass of battery packs may give more damage pound for pound than a bird made of meat & low-density bone.
There’s really 4 distinct impact areas to think about: the windshields, the engine faces, the radome, and everywhere else. Even for a large quadcopter I personally am not much worried about “everywhere else”. It’ll leave a dent, maybe even a big one, and that’s about it. The other two are more worrisome.
The radome is fiberglass and may shatter or lose a really big piece. Which in and of itself isn’t bad except for the greatly increased wind noise that may inhibit communications, buffeting, and perhaps damage to air data sensors nearby. Or air data sensors giving bad readings due to now sitting in disturbed airflow downstream of the impact damage.
Engines and windshields are the Achilles heels. Or at least the weakest point of an otherwise strong structure. I’ve never read of any impact testing, but I suspect the manufacturers’ engineers have run some simulations and have some idea of how big a drone becomes likely catastrophic to an engine or a windshield. Failing an engine is inconvenient. Failing a windshield is at least potentially rather a bigger deal.
10,000 Quatloos that this does not happen. That article is what you get when an automobile writer pens an article about aviation, I guess.
Here’s the current state of Archer’s aircraft:
Every picture you have seen of it flying or sitting on the tarmac is a CGI rendering. The aircraft prototype is not yet built, and no testing has been done.
The idea that this will be certified, in production, and flying routes in 2025 is a joke.
From the linked article:
I’m going to bet they don’t hit those milestones either, given the competion state of the aircraft. But if they do, the design might get certified in 2025-2026, depending on flight testing. But then you have to certify the manufacturing setup once its built, certify maintenance procedures, and on and on.
From the FAA:
That’s just certifying the aircraft. Getting it approved for specific commercial operations is anothet task after that.
I’d give them 50/50 odds of getting through the certification process at all, assuming the whole thing wasn’t just another fanciful way of scooping up those raining zero-interest-rate investment dollars being showered on everyone in the 2010’s.
Happy this turned out relatively well. But Tell Me, is it Necessary that the Airline, in its Press Release, capitalize the words Customers and Employees…?
Great video, thanks. He captured the essence of the incident very well. He’s also using Microsoft Flight Simulator to good effect.
I think they’re also getting ready to test cold-fusion as a method of propulsion.
Because their PR People are Morons, from the One who wrote it to Those who approved it.
Er, what? Their prototype is flying.
Maybe you mean a prototype of the final passenger configuration specifically, in which case you’re right, but the cabin configuration seems less of a big deal than the motor/battery configuration, or the tiltrotor tech.
I agree that the odds of them flying passenger routes in 2025 are… negligible. And about the quality of the Ars automotive writer.
San Jose based, eh? Maybe I can pay them a visit.
Yeah, they’ve flown a conceptual prototype, but the actual version they are trying to commercialize has yet to fly, and that certification needs to be done in full.
I’ve followed the certification trials and tribulations of many light aircraft. Lancair just about bankrupted themselves trying to certify a pretty conventional light aircraft, and had to sell out to Cessna to survive. Porsche spent a huge amount of money and many years just to get a Porsche engine certified for aviation, and eventually dropped the product. Beechcraft spent a huge amount of money and time getting the Beech Starship certified. Lots of companies have tried and failed to certify aircraft. It’s so expensive that 60 year old type certificates are still very valuable.
So when I hear a startup with a fiberglass prototype of a radical aircraft design that breaks new ground in multiple areas say that it will be in commercial operation in two years, the eye rolling is involuntary at this point.
I certainly agree about the difficulty and cost. Still, your comment made it sound that all they had were CG renderings, which isn’t quite true.
Granted, there are really two senses of “prototype” here. The first is the initial samples of the aircraft, on which certification might be based. The other is a limited version of the craft, which acts as a proof of concept for the underlying tech. They have the latter, but not the former.
What they don’t have is a flying prototype of the final production design. There is an earlier aircraft that proves put some of the underlying tech, but the new airplane is a completely new design that will have to undergo full flight testing and certification.
Then if that passes, if I recall they have to build the assembly line, produce production prototypes, have those certified which includes testing at least one to destruction, then have the manufacturing line certified and rigid change controls placed on it. Or at least, that’s the way it used to be done. I haven’t looked for a long time. Butnthe FAA’s own web page says 5-9 years for a new certification. That seems about right historically, but with electric, computer controlled VTOL we are in a whole new category.
Do we count drones as GA in this thread? I hope so.
Although I’m skeptical and not terribly excited about home delivery of food and other stuff by drone, this video is worth watching for just the first half. What this company has done in Rwanda – speedy delivery of medical necessities like blood to hospitals – is incredible. As is the fact that they have made over half a million such deliveries already and are operating nearly nonstop around the clock.
I agree–that was pretty inspiring, and I now want to visit Rwanda, which is not something I thought I’d ever say.
I wonder why they bothered aiming for an airport when any beach would have done as well. Then again, the runway there is only a couple hundred feet from the beach.
They’re probably glad they didn’t confuse the Navy base with the civilian airport nearby.
They must have pranged it upon landing. The starboard wheel assembly is bent 90 degrees.
There’s one of NATO’s RQ-4D Phoenix UAV currently in flight out from Sigonella in Italy - doubtless off to provide some useful surveillance. Callsign is MAGMA10 and I was tracking it with FlightRadar24 until a moment ago when it turned off its transponder.
I suppose there must be quite a few UAV’s about - seems Italy have five Phoenixes - but wondered what defences they might possibly have against further ‘reckless’ confrontation such as we saw with the MQ-9 Reaper drone a while back?
None that I am aware of. Other than of course not having a person onboard so ramming an overly aggressive opponent is not nearly as outre as it would be with a manned platform.