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Absolutt ingen overraskelse, men nå er det bevist at selv små droner er en alvorlig trussel mot flysikkerheten. (Red.)

Drone Damages Wing in Collision Tests

A 2.1-lb. DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter drone tore a hole in the leading edge of a light aircraft wing in a simulated 238-mph (207-kt.) mid-air collision in ground tests at Ohio’s University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI). The damage was greater than that caused by a similar-weight birdstrike, UDRI says.

Launched at the metal wing of a Mooney M20, the drone punched a hole in the leading edge and damaged the main spar. “While the quadcopter broke apart, its energy and mass hung together to create significant damage to the wing,” says Kevin Poormon, group leader for impact physics at UDRI.

Launched at 238 mph into a static Mooney M20 wing, the 2.1-lb. DJI Phantom drone breached the leading edge. Credit: University of Dayton Research Institute

The group conducts sponsored birdstrike testing of aircraft structures. “We’ve performed birdstrike testing for 40 years, and we’ve seen the kind of damage birds can do. Drones are similar in weight to some birds, and so we’ve watched with growing concern as reports of near collisions have increased,” Poormon says. “But there is little to no data about the type of damage UAVs can do, and the information that is available has come only from modeling and simulations,” he says. The group has fired individual drone batteries, cameras and motors at metal panels. The team collaborated with Sinclair College’s National Unmanned Aircraft System Training and Certification Center in Dayton, which provided guidance on UAVs, furnished quadcopters for testing and loaned UDRI a wing to serve as a target. After calibration tests and the launch of a drone at the Mooney wing, researchers fired a similarly weighted gel “bird” into a different part of the wing to compare results. “The bird did more apparent damage to the leading edge, but the Phantom penetrated deeper into the wing and damaged the main spar, which the bird did not,” says Poormon .

“It’s not practical to regulate manned air vehicles to try to avoid collisions with a quickly growing population of drones, but it is practical to regulate UAV operation,” he says, adding that there are other factors that could be looked at, such as making drones frangible so they shatter more easily in collisions. Poormon says additional tests using similar and larger drones on other aircraft structures, such as windscreens and engines, would provide critical information on how catastrophic a collision could be. Package delivery “would require larger and heavier drones which, when combined with the weight of a package, could easily outweigh a Canada goose, known to do significant damage to aircraft,” he says.