Object strike at FL 262
 

An Air China 757 departing Chengdu for Guangzhou reportedly struck an unidentfied object at about 8000 metres (~FL262) this morning and returned to the departure airport. The photos show a large dent in the radome. No news of whether bird or perhaps a weather balloon, to me the marks would rather suggest the latter.

http://m.cdn.blog.hu/pe/pekingikacsa/image/34.jpg

http://m.cdn.blog.hu/pe/pekingikacsa/image/19.jpg

Last item on checklist: Back for coffee and underwear change.
Loudest bang I've heard in an aeroplane was a lightning strike on the nose of a TriStar on finals. I'd guess theirs was worse.

The instrument packages on the weather balloons I have launched would have barely scuffed the paintwork, even at 500 kts. Whatever they hit was no ordinary weather balloon. The object appears to have been painted black, why paint part of a weather balloon that you will never see or use again ?

What sort of date was that? ISTR that those in the 70s could have just about done that.

The 1980s however I doubt the gubbins inside the polystyrene box have become larger or heavier to any significant degree.

Here's a photo taken from the net of what looks like a more modern radio sonde. It is a tad smaller than those I was playing with. Other pictures suggest some are now packed in cardboard.

http://www.windows2universe.org/mila...iosonde_sm.jpg

Wonder if the us lost a drone the same day....

Not at Fl 262

A panda with wind.

Strewth! Looks like a case of: "Hey Captain, what's that mountain goat doing up here in clou...? :eek: "

B Fraser, Looks quite wee esp if in shock casing.
Just remembered; we had a close encounter with one a long time ago. By the time we had visual contact it was too late to avoid. Did once take avoiding action on a para-glider :ooh:

Mods: sorry for the bad language in Chinese - isn't Gogle translate wonderful? ;)

A 0.5 kg payload on a weather balloon hitting the radome at 500 knots would have roughly the same kinetic energy as a 200kg motorbike hitting it at 30 miles per hour.

I have no idea if a 0.5 kg (1 pound) payload on a weather balloon is typical.

A weight of 200g would be about right and they are frangible i.e. designed to deform and cause minimal injury should one land on the head of a member of the public. Either way, they will not leave a black mark on an aircraft in the event of a collision. Rocket sonde payloads are a different matter but that's for another day.

Basil, I assure you the chap on the paraglider wasn't me ;)

I thought the black was just deformed fibreglass.

Some are, some aren't

either way the scuffs overall do not correlate to a spherical object even though the dent does.

I didn't realise that fibreglass deformed that much without shattering, or is it just the paint holding it together? :}

would that sort of impact penetrated the windscreen do you think?

In Capt. Johnny Sadiq's book 'Come Fly With Me - Jets', there's an incident described in which a PIA Trident was struck by a vulture in September 1969. The aircraft was operating Lahore to Rawalpindi flight under the command of Capt. Baakza with Safdar Nana as Co-pilot.

Shortly after take-off from Lahore, a vulture struck nose section of the Trident, penetrated aluminium skin of the aircraft, through pressure bulkhead, came out of instrument panel, glanced off the control column and struck the flight commander Baakza a severe blow on his inner thigh. The captain was now covered in blood and only semi-conscious on the aircraft which was rapidly depressurising with deafening wind blowing into the cockpit. Co-pilot Nana called Lahore for emergency landing, slowed down speed of the aircraft.

Nana asked Flight Engineer to remove semi-conscious captain from his seat to prevent disruption of flight controls during emergency landing. Nana also asked Flight Engineer to sit on captain's seat so that he had someone to select his slats, flaps, and landing gear while he concentrated on bringing the damaged Trident back on ground.

The Trident was safely landed by Nana at Lahore Airport.

Just climbing out of Venice; given LT for shortcut; engaged autopilot; "What's that?!" JC! disengage a/p turn right and watch para pass down port side.
Since the parachutist would have seen and heard us on collision course before we saw him, I'm not sure if had already relieved himself before we passed. :}

The black is the colour of the composite material from which the nose cone is constructed, obviously under a coating of white paint.
Whatever has hit it has not left any trace of paint/blood/whatever on the nose - or penetrated the nose-cone directly, which is exactly what you would expect if that something was made of polystyrene foam, or encased in same.
A radiosonde sounds about right to me.

Air birds hit flat nose great impact (Figure) - Page 2 - Shanghai Station News

Mystery solved?