Analysis evaluates the risks of drone strikes on gas turbine engines, highlighting industry concerns.
Over the past few decades, aircraft and engine manufacturers have worked hard to design engines that can withstand bird and other wildlife strikes. While nearly 20,000 wildlife strikes were reported to the FAA in 2023 alone, only 3.6 percent of them caused engine damage. Yet, the world’s airspace is getting more and more crowded by the day. With increasing numbers of larger, more powerful unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) taking to the air, it raises an important question: what might happen to a gas turbine engine if it ingests a drone?
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Kayt Sukel (2025) studied this question.
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