Drone Hits Army Helicopter over New York

Megalith

Megalith

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On Thursday, an aerial drone struck a US Army Black Hawk helicopter in the sky over NYC: the incident happened 500 feet above the Midland Beach section of Staten Island at about 7:30 p.m. The crew, which had been flying security missions for the UN, found a piece of a drone in the oil cooler and damage to the fuselage and two blades.

Fox 5 obtained photographs showing the rotor damage and the debris that is purportedly part of a drone. The Army is sending helicopters from Fort Bragg to Linden to change out the damaged blades, the source said. The damaged Black Hawk will be back in service in the next day, Colonel Buccino said. The collision appears to be an accident, he said, adding that this is the first time something like that is confirmed to have happened.
 
This could possibly be a new avenue of attack, even if this time was an accident. In terms of scale of cost, I suspect a swarm of drones would be substantially cheaper than a weapon that normally takes down black hawks. I can't speak for all weapons mind you, but swarms of drones as a weapon seems very versatile and cost-effective.
 
BloodyIron said:
This could possibly be a new avenue of attack, even if this time was an accident. In terms of scale of cost, I suspect a swarm of drones would be substantially cheaper than a weapon that normally takes down black hawks. I can't speak for all weapons mind you, but swarms of drones as a weapon seems very versatile and cost-effective.
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I'm surprised they haven't been used as cheap smart bombs.
 
Nice to see North Korea has drone technology now...
 
Repairs are being made, expect it back in action in 24 hours... so like the repairs are probably an extended inspection and not much damage was actually done.
 
Well, read that as "Drone army hits helicopter over new york" and thought shit was about to get real interesting.
 
What if the drone was hovering in the same spot?

Wouldn't it mean that the army helicopter "hit" the drone instead?
 
Not much different than a bird strike i would surmise. This will undoubtedly rekindle the debate on safe flying heights for helicopters around civilian airspace and legal/safe drone operating altitudes in same said airspaces.
 
oldmanbal said:
Not much different than a bird strike i would surmise. This will undoubtedly rekindle the debate on safe flying heights for helicopters around civilian airspace and legal/safe drone operating altitudes in same said airspaces.
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I'd think it'd be very different. Engine turbines can be built to withstand some bird flesh but something made of metal/composites/hard plastics is a different beast. Try cutting a chicken with your favorite metal kitchen knife/blade, now cut a drone.

I highly doubt any hobby drones will ever see any protected airspace in our lifetime. Commercial drones will more likely than not have to comply with normal flight rules for manned aircraft.
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
I highly doubt any hobby drones will ever see any protected airspace in our lifetime. Commercial drones will more likely than not have to comply with normal flight rules for manned aircraft.
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Undoubtedly this seems like the most plausible outcome. There may be a Ceiling limit incoming for drone operation and possibly even a ban in urban environments in the near future.
 
They started it.

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Gigus Fire said:
Lol. When a plastic fan blade is capable of taking down an attack helicopter wake me up.
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You are severely underestimating the damage that FOD can cause, which is what a drone becomes. Modern helicopters are powered by turbines, which means they have the same weaknesses as any other turbine. There is quite a bit of metal and composite materials in higher end quadcopters. It actually isn't out of the realm of possibility of one causing an IFE or even a turbine failure if it were a heavy duty one and get sucked in.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
You are severely underestimating the damage that FOD can cause, which is what a drone becomes. Modern helicopters are powered by turbines, which means they have the same weaknesses as any other turbine. There is quite a bit of metal and composite materials in higher end quadcopters. It actually isn't out of the realm of possibility of one causing an IFE or even a turbine failure if it were a heavy duty one and get sucked in.
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Ok sure. Fan blades which are designed to come apart on impact have a really low chance of damaging a turbine. Has it ever happened yet?
 
Gigus Fire said:
Lol. When a plastic fan blade is capable of taking down an attack helicopter wake me up.
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A commercial drone isn't a huge threat to military aircraft unless it's been designed to be so. For civilian aircraft it's not the "plastic fan blade" the's the wires and screws in the ROV. A length of wire can ground a jet for a week. People just need to be conscious of where they use their remote control vehicles.
 
jpm100 said:
How many grams of C4 and some luck would it take to ruin a helicopter's day?
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Has that happened here in america? Provide citation instead of some Tom Clancy novels.
nysmo said:
Youre a fucking idiot. You have a jet turbine spinning at 30,000 rpm, any fuckin debris that enters that can destroy the engine. A drone is more than a set of "plastic fan blades". There's like, the rest of the fucking drone you know? Rotor blades on any aircraft arent meant to strike ANYTHING in the air. Every morning on an aircraft carrier a team of about 200 people scour the flight deck for anything and everything down to something as smell as a pebble. Gee I wonder why?
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You're talking about a titanium turbine rotating at high speed. Will it get destroyed by a plastic composite piece that's extremely small? Dunno. But engines are tested with lots of different materials to check to see when it'll fail. It would be interested to do this kind of testing at facilities such as this to check what effect if any a drone strike would have against a turbine and to design around it:
https://www.wired.com/2014/11/how-ge-tests-jet-engines/
 
Where are your flying cars now? Most people are quite challenged with 2D, wanna throw another D at them. No.
 
people don't understand how fragile aircraft are... it doesn't take much to cause 1000's to millions in damages at the lest or get people killed at worst

shit like this will only hurt model aviation as laws get tighter
 
I was in the AF for a better part of a decade. I primarily worked on modified C-130s. Dealing with birds is bad enough, having to deal with drones just doesn't help matters any. And, yes, drones can and will be weaponized by countries like Somalia, Syria, Iran, Canada, etc.
 
I'm pretty sure that the revised FAA UAS laws allow for flight up to 500 feet. (or at least I saw an official FAA memo on it last year) I didn't see any news story covering this crash being in a restricted air space.

edit: It looks like the collision took place just outside of the 5 mile radius of Newark airport in a Class B airspace with a 1500ft vertical limit.
 
It's called the Golden BB. The one shot that brings an aircraft down.
 
Gigus Fire said:
Has that happened here in america? Provide citation instead of some Tom Clancy novels.
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Why does it need to happen here in America to be a possibility? Wow, so you think a drone flying into a turbine won't hurt the turbine, even without explosives? Aren't you the one that thinks adding more CO2 to the atmosphere would benefit everything?
 
Gigus Fire said:
Has that happened here in america? Provide citation instead of some Tom Clancy novels.

You're talking about a titanium turbine rotating at high speed. Will it get destroyed by a plastic composite piece that's extremely small? Dunno. But engines are tested with lots of different materials to check to see when it'll fail. It would be interested to do this kind of testing at facilities such as this to check what effect if any a drone strike would have against a turbine and to design around it:
https://www.wired.com/2014/11/how-ge-tests-jet-engines/
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Sure they test it, doesnt mean it's supposed to just ingest debris because it passed the test. My Civic can supposedly survive a head on collision at 60 mph. Doesnt mean im not going to try and avoid that at every opportunity.
 
Gigus Fire said:
Has that happened here in america? Provide citation instead of some Tom Clancy novels.
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Because there's a law of physics against it?

You're talking about a titanium turbine rotating at high speed. Will it get destroyed by a plastic composite piece that's extremely small? Dunno. But engines are tested with lots of different materials to check to see when it'll fail. It would be interested to do this kind of testing at facilities such as this to check what effect if any a drone strike would have against a turbine and to design around it:
https://www.wired.com/2014/11/how-ge-tests-jet-engines/
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The length of a helicopter blade makes for strange instability issues. Disturb one enough and it will do the work of destroying itself.
 
nysmo said:
Sure they test it, doesnt mean it's supposed to just ingest debris because it passed the test. My Civic can supposedly survive a head on collision at 60 mph. Doesnt mean im not going to try and avoid that at every opportunity.
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I'm not saying you should try and test to see the damage you can cause by flying drones into turbines unless it's being done as a test in a lab. I mean a lot of helicopters have nets in front of the turbines to prevent it from inhaling things and having turbine issues. It's all a matter of operation. 500 feet is fairly low altitude that most planes won't encounter unless they're taking off or landing which is why there are restrictions for drone usage in areas around an airport. Helicopters are a different story. The minimum safe altitude in non crowded areas is 500 feet in which it was traveling at. Drones have a legal max of 400 feet. So either the drone was operating unsafely or the helicopter was lower than it was really reported being as.
Accidents will happen either way. It's safe to assume that this was an accident and that it wasn't done on purpose.
But i'd still stick with the fact that it would take some catastrophic chances to actually bring down a helicopter with a drone.
Can a drone kill you if you struck it with your car? In the off chance the blade breaks apart and cuts your fuel line and it ignites, sure, there's a chance, but it's extremely minimal.
 
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nysmo said:
Youre a fucking idiot. You have a jet turbine spinning at 30,000 rpm, any fuckin debris that enters that can destroy the engine. A drone is more than a set of "plastic fan blades". There's like, the rest of the fucking drone you know? Rotor blades on any aircraft arent meant to strike ANYTHING in the air. Every morning on an aircraft carrier a team of about 200 people scour the flight deck for anything and everything down to something as smell as a pebble. Gee I wonder why?
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Helo engines are filtered and screened far, far more than the intakes on fighters and other jet aircraft. Helo's are designed to land, take off, and hover over gravel, dirt, dust, etc. Drone pieces might screw up the rotor blades, but they're not going to get into the turbines.
 
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