And don’t forget wind direction and velocity.
30K wind directly down the runway is a huge difference from a dead calm.
And dead calm at 100F vs 30K at 15F.....
Geese hit the engines by sheer luck. A cloud of small drones blanketing the departure path might get a large jet but one drone in the constantly varying flight path is not going to happen.
The drone operator would have to know the numbers for each model aircraft, TO weight, effect of wind, temp, field elevation, pressure...and then would have to be able to control the drone so as to have it in the exact spot required....
It would be easier to put 200 drones in the departure corridor and destroy more than one engine.
“The drone operator would have to know the numbers for each model aircraft, TO weight, effect of wind, temp, field elevation, pressure...and then would have to be able to control the drone so as to have it in the exact spot required....”
True, and entirely within the capacity of, for example, the planners of 9-11.
I would expect a terrorist to focus on one and only one high value airframe for a particular attack plan (a particular 747-200B comes to mind, to start with, but that would be a “hard target”). Multiple attack variables could be programed into the control station of the drone and at the last minute the variables for a particular airframe could be sent to the drone.
If a person reads down the whole blog and goes to the supporting links and videos, I think this kind of attack will be seen as more feasible.
The FBI and an NTSB investigator certainly thought making such an attack in the air in three dimensions miles from the airport in a Landing Approach Kill Zone (LAKZ...blog pending) as can be seen at the bottom of my opening comment to JR.
Yep. The only way I see a drone operator hitting an engine of a 747 is with visual guidance and with some luck still. Doable but there are far more effective and less risky means to harm airplanes in Afghanistan.