Why no bird strike mechanisms these days?

A shield, such as a wire mesh, in front of any jet engine would disturb the airflow into the inlet and it would be very inefficient and you would have to have some means of de-icing it as it would ice up in flight. Engines do have wire mesh shields put in front of them when being tested by the manufacturer. So, it wont happen to standard engines on airliners.

a little off topic but can you notice the bird in time ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTCqDmvg0iQ

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. I have to say I am still none the wiser!

What prompted my OP was looking at the Hudson River crash, I could not believe that a bird strike could cause something like that.

Anyway. Appreciate the info.

The Hudson incident involved a flock of geese rather than just one bird, which is the more “usual” and relatively uneventful type of bird strike.

The investigation found that each engine ingested at least 2 Canada geese, which are obviously larger than most birds encountered by aircraft.

2.2.2 Identification of Ingested Birds
The Smithsonian Institution analyzed the feather and tissue samples from both engines and determined that the left engine contained both male and female Canada geese remains, indicating that the engine ingested at least two geese. (The average weight of a male Canada goose is from 8.4 to 9.2 pounds, and the average weight of a female goose is from 7.3 to 7.8 pounds.) The Smithsonian Institution report stated that only male Canada goose remains were found in the right engine, suggesting that it might have only ingested one bird; however, a
comparison of the physical features and quantity of the damage in the two engines, which will be discussed in the following sections, indicated that the right engine ingested at least two Canada geese.

All together, a really unfortunate and extremely unlikely situation which isn't typical of bird strikes as a whole.

mickdw wrote: »

I wonder if some form of deflector/ protector could be designed to trigger if Bird was detected passing nose of aircraft.
At say 200 miles per hour, or 88 m/s, I'd imagine there would easily be time to trigger some airbag type reaction where a bird would be detected. This would trigger a fine grille or deflector in front of the engine intake. Yes the engine would then loose efficiency but I'd imagine it might still give reasonable power and system would then be reset on the ground.
With say 20m from nose to engine, there would be nearly quarter of a second to position device opon triggering.

Yeah, let’s add some explosives to the mix /sarcasm

Even if detecting passing birds was as easily done as said, the vast majority of birds that pass the nose of the aircraft within half of the wingspan still aren’t going to go near the engines, but now you’d be firing some system which adds new potential FOD to the mouth of the engine, and then needs to be reset/replaced even if it didn’t prevent the engine ingesting a bird which it’s been designed to handle comfortably. Or if the bird does hit the grille, it gets sliced up and ingested anyway, or worse, takes some of the grille with it into the engine.

Even if none of the above was a problem, I bet the cost of extra fuel to carry these systems (before even considering development, fitting, maintenance, and resetting fired devices) would be many many times higher than the cost of repairing/replacing the occasional bird-damaged engine.

faoiarvok wrote: »

mickdw wrote: »

I wonder if some form of deflector/ protector could be designed to trigger if Bird was detected passing nose of aircraft.
At say 200 miles per hour, or 88 m/s, I'd imagine there would easily be time to trigger some airbag type reaction where a bird would be detected. This would trigger a fine grille or deflector in front of the engine intake. Yes the engine would then loose efficiency but I'd imagine it might still give reasonable power and system would then be reset on the ground.
With say 20m from nose to engine, there would be nearly quarter of a second to position device opon triggering.

Yeah, let’s add some explosives to the mix /sarcasm

Even if detecting passing birds was as easily done as said, the vast majority of birds that pass the nose of the aircraft within half of the wingspan still aren’t going to go near the engines, but now you’d be firing some system which adds new potential FOD to the mouth of the engine, and then needs to be reset/replaced even if it didn’t prevent the engine ingesting a bird which it’s been designed to handle comfortably. Or if the bird does hit the grille, it gets sliced up and ingested anyway, or worse, takes some of the grille with it into the engine.

Even if none of the above was a problem, I bet the cost of extra fuel to carry these systems (before even considering development, fitting, maintenance, and resetting fired devices) would be many many times higher than the cost of repairing/replacing the occasional bird-damaged engine.

There is nothing dangerous about incorporating an explosive where it's max potential is to carry out the deployment of bird protection system.
I believe detecting birds is as easy as described with todays tech and could very likely accurately predict point of impact with aircraft too making false firing of the system less of an issue.
It's not so much cost versus engine damage that I was thinking, more cost of system versus loss of plane but unfortunately the industry doesn't see it that way and the loss of a plane and everyone on board is a price the industry is happy to pay if it costs less than introducing a safety system.
I don't believe it's crazy and could be incorporated into new aircraft if the willingness of the industry was there.

Some Military aircraft in particular Sukhoi and later model MiG have FOD(Foreign Object Debris) protection integrated into their intake design.
This application operates at low speeds and is intended to allow the aircraft to be much more easily deployed to semi prepared airfields.
It operates on a combination of low speed actuated mesh grilles and louvred intake doors on the upper intake surface.

There are a number of reasons why it more feasible for military aircraft to use a system such as this, including the use of geometrically precise ducted intakes, necessity of rough field operations and ensuring serviceability that in a civil aircraft aren't either cost effective or at all practical.

Bird strike is really only a safety issue at low speed or take off, much more dangerous to an aircraft is the ingestion of FOD on taxiing or take-off and more effort is directed at eliminating those risks rather than bird strike.

mickdw wrote: »

the loss of a plane and everyone on board is a price the industry is happy to pay if it costs less than introducing a safety system.

That is absolutely not true. If it were, plenty of systems in widespread use would not exist, as the cost of carrying them is greater over the long term than the financial cost of replacing an airplane and paying compensation.

The issue is that an effective, economical system that doesn't itself increase the risk of malfunction doesn't yet exist. I don't believe what you propose is that system, for the reasons already put forward.