A real possibility IME having many years ago lobbed frozen chickens out of an air canon at ground tethered Tornadoes. Looks pretty dramatic but the engine retained integrity, no major combustion of aviation fuel and the engine pylon and wing suffered very little damage. Pilot got the plane safely back to the airport and no-one injured. I’d say that’s a result. Andy
That looks like it was in colour, but the original Black and White version of that story starred William Shatner, which would appear appropriate considering the above comments. Nasher
The original featured an old propelled aircraft. The jet engine on fire reminded me more of the later colored version.
I remember witnessing a bird strike test on an Airbus wing section at BAe Filton back in the 80’s - they didn’t use a shop/frozen chicken as it would not replicate the “flow characteristics” of being hit by a live bird. Instead, they used a freshly killed bird. The old lab technician (brown lab coat, pencils in pocket etc) got this live chicken and held it gently in his hands while it was clucking away - he then proceeded to walk along the air cannon with it to the muzzle end saying “‘ere my lovely, just walking you along the route you’ll be travelling in a moment so you knows where you’re going as you’ll be travelling so damn fast next time you’d best be sure where you’re going..” He then snapped its neck, shoved it in the cannon and BANG...
Thought to be a failed fan blade (or two). Excellent job at containing all those metal bits Seems P&W (uniquely) have 'hollow' fan blades. 'Hollow' sounds a bit simplistic? Don't know what RR do now, but RB211 times (when I worked there) the blades had spark eroded cooling galleries. Shit happens, but at least all the systems worked and lessons will be learned.
Apparently this is a 777-specific P&W engine with, as above, hollow fan blades that let go. Presumably this means they're a shell, not solid. This is not the first failure...
Been talking about this on Zoom all morning with colleagues at work. We have lots of equipment on 777s, none of it flight critical thankfully, but do have loads of open orders for new equipment to fit. It's been a really difficult 12 months already, with orders put back and cancelled, and this could add to the delays in us delivering more orders. Nasher.
I can just imagine what is happening now at P&W to see if the failure is a design fault, a manufacturing batch issue, a routine inspection issue or the failure was the result of external influences. Spent a lot of time in a previous existence, trawling through quality and maintenance records. Andy
