Yes, vultures can fly crazy high, and do a lot of damage to aircraft.
They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
One notable example: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/flying-fish/
180 mph taken from a bit of googling, ballpark figure on upper end.
So this was really immediately after takeoff. My understanding of commercial airliners is they usually fly fairly parallel with the ground just after takeoff to pick up speed before ascending, so I would guess they hadn’t much altitude at all.
Anyway it’s a very interesting article, ty to poster! And it was an interesting question to think about.
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The A-10 Warthog is known for being quite tough. It operates relatively slowly, at small-arms altitudes, so it can take a licking.
Wait, military aircraft have LESS redundancy to survive "hits" than civil?
There are a few single engine aircraft roles (including the F104), but they are not and have never been the bulk of active serving aircraft. It isn’t just ‘technically’ true.
edit: ah but they are "military aircraft", sure. fine.
And not all fighter jets are single engine. For example, the F22, F18, etc.
That's not to say they don't defend in depth, one reason twin engine fighters are desired is because of engine redundancy after all, but a more "armored" plain is a slower, bulkier, easier to detect and easier to hit target. And you'll still likely get taken down in one hit.
And there's still not a lot you can do if your engine swallows a bird or two, especially if you only have one.
The military also has the expectation that not everyone is going to come home, unlike a civilian airliner where the safety margins are much wider.
As a result, resilience isn't great.
Bombers and logistic planes have redundancy.
Some helicopters have a single engine. Most have 2. They are still unreliable death machines, and arguably 2 engines makes the problem a bit worse (more moving parts). They are (sometimes) more tolerant of a single engine out, of course. But transmissions are often the weak spot with helicopters.
Single vs Dual has many factors, not just reliability.
A single engine failure on a SR71 (if I remember correctly) resulted in a airframe loss and ejection at relatively low speeds, and one at full speed would likely result in a complete crew loss on top of it - and it has dual engines. Think catastrophic near instant destruction.
Sometimes you just need more power than a single engine (with current tech) can provide in the space you have available, for instance.
Sometimes, like an A10, you really do want something that can take a massive beating and keep going.
A B52 can lose 2 engines with no issues, and theoretically up to 4 and still be controllable (depending on the distribution of the lost engines). But that isn’t because it needs reliability, but because it’s got 8 engines because it was designed to carry a metric shit ton of explosives, and it only had 60’s era tech jet engines.
Modern jets usually use 2 (much more powerful) engines for similar or even larger payloads.
Depending on how fast the plane is going, "good chunk" might be a hilarious understatement too. Hitting an object at 1000mph imparts 4x the damage compared to hitting an object at 500mph.
If you want to see an example of a durable military aircraft, look at the A-10:
(Hit by a literal bird, still flying: https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/a-10-warthog-hits-bird-at-r...)
(Hit by idk what, giant hole in engine, engine on fire, still flying for an hour back to base: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-another-story-10-warth...)
Anyways, that's a military plane designed to get hit by... stuff... and as a result can take bird strikes. But its max speed is like 400mph and it would get absolutely wrecked by any serious opposition from fighters. The more resilient you make a plane to birds, the more vulnerable it is to missiles, per unit price. And missiles is kinda the point of the whole endeavor.
How many single engine civilian jets are there?