[AR] Re: Fwd: arocket list

  • From: "Doug Jones" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "randome" for DMARC)
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 22:18:23 -0800

The Ez-Rocket had bird strikes on consecutive flights in July 2002, one at Mojave and one at Oshkosh. I know this because I had to clean up the messes.

Two dead birds, but no damage to the aircraft, in part because it had no air inlets.

On 2018-02-18 10:30 AM, Keith Henson wrote:

I asked REL about bird strikes and got this back

Yes, we have considered FOD but do not think it???s a problem. A first 
generation space plane like Skylon will only be designed for 200 flights or so, 
however bird strike occurs at roughly 10^-5 for civil airliners (from memory) 
so the probability of a strike over the vehicle life is quite small.

Nevertheless FOD and birds will pass axially along the intake duct and strike 
the bypass burners rather than the precooler which is tucked away inside. Since 
the bypass system is not running for takeoff this will result in a mission 
abort rather than loss of vehicle

Keith



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