Was the Ez-Rocket on loud or quiet setting when it got hit though? I only
ask because killing birds when they can't hear you coming isn't a fair
comparison!
On 20 February 2018 at 06:18, Doug Jones <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
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