Originally Posted by
SansAnhedral
"Well protected" perhaps from prying eyes only. In the event of a birdstrike, the thin fiberglass nacelle fairings might well as be made of a wet paper bag. They will do nothing to attenuate the energy.
You hope they’re either stiff enough to deflect the bird (not likely unless a glancing blow) or the bird punches a hole through the fairing... one of the worst cases is if a fairing deflects like cloth as the bird penetrates the structure and helps contain the mass of the bird as it strikes real structure inside. Better to have the bird uncontained and allowed to 'flow' around structure like rods and struts. Of course, the impacted structure still has to be strong enough to survive those events. Bird strike testing and analysis was one of the more interesting problems I’ve dealt with.