Delta pilots land airplane despite severe damage from hailstones

[Foreigner]

Hailstorm damages nose and cracks windscreen:

Delta Airlines pilots make emergency landing after hail storm cracked windshield | Daily Mail Online

 

[samh004]

Incident: Delta A320 near Denver on Aug 7th 2015, hail strike

From reading the comments on the AV Herald, sounds like the pilots should have avoided the area, but didn't.

 

[Grimace1]

Ouch - That poor aircraft!

 

[mannej]

Ouch - That poor aircraft!

I am sure it will buff out!

 

[AVC]

They should just construct the nosecone out of the same material as the engine cowlings, or the turbine blades.
Problemo solved! Well, except for the windshield...

 

[esseeeayeenn]

They should just construct the nosecone out of the same material as the engine cowlings, or the turbine blades.
Problemo solved! Well, except for the windshield...

The nosecone is a radome protecting the aircraft's weather and forward-looking radar.
As such it needs to be transparent to radar and/or radio waves and not attenuate the signal significantly.
So it can't be made of the same material as the engine cowlings or turbine blades.

 

[eric2011]

I am sure it will buff out!

Nah, this is serious. They will need some duct tape as well

 

[docjames]

Wow forward visibility would have ben an issue!

 

[esseeeayeenn]

Just for interest, the nose cone is made of AFRP - aramid fibre reinforced plastic.
This helps explain the very localised damage.

 

[juddles]

A $200 depth sounder these days can pick up a sardine hiding in seaweed 100m under a tinnie, but a modern plane cannot detect a cascade of "baseball sized" hailstones??

 

[AVC]

The nosecone is a radome protecting the aircraft's weather and forward-looking radar.
As such it needs to be transparent to radar and/or radio waves and not attenuate the signal significantly.
So it can't be made of the same material as the engine cowlings or turbine blades.

Oh, I'm sorry, forgot to add the "WARNING WARNING THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SARCASM" warning.

Yes. Putting a Faraday cage in front of the radome will stop it (the radar) working.

On another note...

It seems that every time there is an aircraft disaster, the focus is on finding the "black boxes" intact (or orange cylinders).
But the big question is - why do they not just construct the entire plane out of the same material as the black boxes so the whole plane remains intact????

Damn, forgot the warning again.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

I thought it was hyperbole, not sarcasm.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[Fran&Tan]

Wow!

Amazing.

 

[jb747]

From reading the comments on the AV Herald, sounds like the pilots should have avoided the area, but didn't.

AvHerald is as full of armchair experts as any other internet forum. We have no idea what his radar was showing. The satellite thermal images that are often trotted out have little relationship to the radar returns.

 

[maninblack]

Forget the PGA. "These guys are good"!

 

[samh004]

AvHerald is as full of armchair experts as any other internet forum. We have no idea what his radar was showing. The satellite thermal images that are often trotted out have little relationship to the radar returns.

Good to know!