Originally Posted by
UltraFan
I don't know the answer to those but here are my 2 cents, for what it's worth. The United 1549 hit at least one goose with each engine. That's roughly 5 kilos of bird per donk. The Ural Airlines 178 hit seagulls. I don't know what happened to the right engine, but I counted seven birds injested by the left one. That's anywhere between 5 and 10 kilograms of meat. And that's, in purely technical terms, A LOT.
If we change the certification requirements, which bird do we take for reference? Swans can weigh over 20 kilos. Even a regular wild turkey has been known to grow to 25-30 kilos. And those are just regular birds that can be found anywhere in the world in big numbers. Then the size of the bird matters. Condors and albatroses have wingspan comparable to light aircraft. How do we provide for that?
I just read someone say there is a huge landfil near ZIA - a feasting spot for all local birds. No idea if it's true, but if it is, maybe there lies the solution.
I seriously doubt you could count birds ingested. Maybe a count of those that missed. However the experts could estimate birds that were ingested through a variety of means, including groups of dented fan blades and dents across the leading edge plane surfaces. Even with a hundred or so gulls in front of the engine you probably would get no more than 2 in a CFM56. And like I said before why would that many gulls be allowed on an active runway.
The cert basis is based on historical probabilities and not on lets imagine how many can fit