What would be the effect, would a firework just ‘bounce off’ the plane if the interception actually happened from all odds?
A firework could go to about the height of at max 1000 feet.
Modern jetliners typically cruse at about 26000-36000 ft some aeroplanes have
been known to hit the 85,068 ft marker for the extremes but this is
classified to anything further.
What is the chance that a firework could actually hit a landing jetliner?
Has it ever happened?
WAG: It’d just bounce off. Maybe dent a panel.
what’s the chance that it could hit it?
surely some part of the plane could be affected?
I’d put it at about 1 in 10,000.
You’d have to factor a number of things such as length of time between lighting it and blast off, speed and direction of airplane, speed and direction of firework, and uncalculable things such as wind speed and direction at any given place and time.
All in all if you’re somewhat good at it, I’d give you a 1 in 100 chance.
I say 1 in 10,000 because there’s little chance you’d actually get more than a few shots off before the police came to haul your ass off to jail…
It’s a modest danger near airports. More from the sudden flashes of light than impacts. Large jetliners often have autoland systems, but a pilot of a lighter aircraft could flinch at an unfortunate time.
Given that my knucklehead friends once got into a fireworks fight, whereby they shot firework mortors at each other and survived mostly unharmed, I think a jetliner would withstand a direct hit with minimal damage if any at all.
What would happen if it actually hit the front window?
I mean I know those things are tested for incoming birds.
lol I just remembered
** This is a true story **
In Britain they used a machine to throw chickens at the screen of an aeroplane to test if it would break if a bird did actually hit the screen. Sure the chickens were dead. It worked and they made the screen withstand impact from chickens.
They sold the idea to America. The Americans who tried it out couldn’t work out how why the window keeps smashing. They asked Britain for advice.
The British people replied “did you defrost the chickens first?”
Oh today one of the fireworks from the Cuckfield display actually came down and landed a foot away from me. Sure it wasn’t as explosive as I had imagined but I bet it would have hurt if it hit me on the head.
No, it isn’t.
See the article about this story at Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.htm
This silly story has been floating around for at least 15 years. Though the nationalities mentioned generally chang to hype your country, and insult some country you dislike. (The version cited at SNOPES has the US FAA teaching it to the British.)
:d
Aircraft windscreens are tougher than you might think. They’ve obviously considered the danger to the aircraft if an object was to destroy the windscreen and taken steps to prevent it happening.
To save me laboriously typing out the construction of a modern screen here’s a citehttp://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/FRheft/FRH0308/FR0308h.htm to save me the bother.
A firework shouldn’t be much of a problem.
I’ve seen a BAC111 return to base having gone through a hailstorm where there were large dents all over the skin, particularly the tailplane, and the windscreens were completely undamaged.
Yes. I’ve been in the same hangar as a Gulfstream which had suffered severe hail damage. Our first impression was that it had been shot up. This new transparent aluminium stuff sounds pretty exciting.