“Don’t laugh off these tiny drones. Could be just as deadly as bird strikes.”
Correct. A 747 was brought down by TINY Kestrels!
“US freighter operator Kalitta Air has adapted its training procedures to warn crews of the risk of post-V1 rejected take-off, following an inquiry into the overrun which destroyed a Boeing 747-200F in Brussels.
“The aircraft experienced a stall in its inboard right-hand Pratt & Whitney JT9D engine after it ingested a kestrel during the take-off roll on 25 May last year. It failed to stop within the length of runway 20, travelling 300m (980ft) beyond and breaking up into several sections, although none of the five occupants was injured.”
Belgian investigators believe several elements contributed to the crew’s decision to abort the take-off despite the aircraft’s travelling 12kt above V1. After hearing a bang the captain called ‘reject’, seven seconds after the first officer had made the V1 call-out.”
The Runway Killzone Blog does not claim that the Bagram crash WAS a terrorist attack, but only points out that is COULD have been a terrorist attack made using drones positioned to “mine” the runway in the Runway Kill Zone (RKZ).
Here is a video of a swarm of about 49 multi-copters performing complex geometric maneuvers which industrious malevolent terrorists could migrate to the landing approach. Four sub-swarm groupings of multiple multi-copters could be maneuvered by GPS/inertial autonavigation to waypoint coordinates setting up a likely collision with each of the four engines of a jumbo-jet in a landing approach, for example at the previously referenced Jepessen point ZULAB in the ILS path to runway 31R.
“49 quadrocopter in outdoor-formation-flight / Ars Electronica Futurelab / Linz, Austria”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGl5rQK3ew