Think flying is scary? Wait until you hear about chicken cannons, drone crashes, and the wildest airplane safety tests! This video dives into all the wild ways engineers make sure your flight is safe, plus some hilarious myths about parachutes and bird strikes. Hit that subscribe button for more awesome content, and drop a comment telling us what blew your mind the most! #aviation #safety #planes #mythbusters #travel
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
0:00 - Dangers of Birds and Drones
1:18 - Bird Strikes and Safety Measures
2:57 - Emergency Landings and Crash Testing
4:50 - Aircraft Stress Tests and Wing Safety
6:14 - Hacking and Electrical Safety
7:23 - Flight Safety Innovations and Parachute Myths
11:51 - Defining Flight Safety and Material Advances
15:28 - Final Thoughts and Reassurances
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with @kramola_online
0:00 - Dangers of Birds and Drones
1:18 - Bird Strikes and Safety Measures
2:57 - Emergency Landings and Crash Testing
4:50 - Aircraft Stress Tests and Wing Safety
6:14 - Hacking and Electrical Safety
7:23 - Flight Safety Innovations and Parachute Myths
11:51 - Defining Flight Safety and Material Advances
15:28 - Final Thoughts and Reassurances
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00Check this out on Mythbusters.
00:02They shoot right through a racket with a 2 gram ping pong ball.
00:08This photo also involves fast moving objects.
00:11This is the trace left by a bird that was lucky enough to combine its speed with that
00:16of a fighter jet.
00:17A 2 kilogram seagull leaves holes in the fuselage, comparable to those made by a shell.
00:24Here are a few more shots that will add fuel to the fire of your aerophobia.
00:28Or here's another one.
00:30In the laboratory of the American University in Dayton, they accelerated a drone to almost
00:36400 kilometers per hour.
00:37They showed what would happen if it crashed into an airplane.
00:41The plastic drone goes into the metal wing like a knife through butter.
00:46It's not hard to imagine what would happen if the speed were higher and the drone heavier.
00:52Fortunately, birds and drones are only encountered at low altitudes, below the cruising levels
00:57of large airplanes.
00:58They simply don't fly around airports.
01:01Birds are deliberately scared away.
01:03They put up scarecrows, launch kites shaped like birds of prey, use real hunting birds of
01:10prey, or simply shoot at the birds.
01:13In busy airports, ultrasonic repellents work best.
01:18For the same reason, many Global Positioning System drone firmwares include zones where
01:23the drone cannot take off, most often located near airports.
01:28Despite these safety measures, no new aircraft model will be put into mass production without
01:34special tests for collisions with birds or other foreign objects.
01:39A real device called a chicken cannon was created specifically for such tests.
01:45And this is not a joke.
01:47Despite increasingly advanced technologies, birds still pose quite a significant danger.
01:53Engineers with serious faces actually load the cannon with chicken carcasses weighing about
01:59two kilograms and shoot them at the airplane's fuselage, windshield, and engines at a speed
02:05of about 540 kilometers per hour.
02:08According to statistics, birds collide with airplanes more than 5,000 times a year.
02:13In the last quarter century, they have managed to disable 160 airplanes.
02:18The largest disaster caused by birds happened in 1960, when 62 people died.
02:26Most aviation incidents don't cause casualties, but they do create significant stress.
02:32A few years ago, a flock of seagulls got in the way of a Moscow-Simphoropal flight.
02:37Subtitle editor.
02:39The birds got into the engine air intakes.
02:41The left engine stalled immediately, and the right one lost thrust right in flight.
02:47There was a large field, soft soil, and tall corn that softened the hard landing.
02:52This is exactly the case when the pilot's skill saved the passenger's lives.
02:57After all, an ordinary person often thinks that if a plane's engines fail, it's better
03:03to land on liquid water rather than solid ground.
03:07In theory, it should soften the impact, but that's not the case.
03:12The airliner lands at 250-270 kilometers per hour.
03:17In this case, hitting the water is almost no different from hitting the ground.
03:22When landing on water, the aircraft can break apart.
03:26If you raise the nose too much, there's a risk of hitting the water with the tail, and
03:31then the tail assembly will break off.
03:33On the other hand, you could scoop water with the engines, and as a result, they might break
03:39off, or the plane could sink.
03:41So in this case, there will be problems not only for passengers who can't fly, but also
03:47for those who can't swim.
03:48And still, maybe not as much is done for flight safety as we would like.
03:54Maybe greedy capitalists are still stingy with money for tests or safety systems.
04:00In the worst case, they could have given every passenger a parachute.
04:04Let's see what's being done in this area.
04:07To understand a car's safety margin, crash tests are conducted.
04:11But for airplanes, that's rare.
04:13All emergencies are usually simulated in laboratories, although sometimes airliners do get crashed.
04:20For example, here's this decommissioned Fokker F-28.
04:24On board are 24 dummies, men, women, and children.
04:29The height is 45 meters, and it's a real hard landing.
04:33Here are also the famous crash test shots of the 727 Boeing.
04:38This video is part of tests conducted to visually determine the most dangerous seats for passengers
04:43on an airplane, as well as to find out the impact of seat belts on preserving people's
04:49lives and health.
04:50The organizers of the experiment simulated not a plane crash, but an emergency landing.
04:55It turned out that the dummy with a fastened seat belt, positioned in the emergency posture,
05:01was almost unharmed.
05:03The dummy sitting upright with a straight back suffered a head injury, and the unbelted
05:08dummy died.
05:09And in this footage, you can see the results of tests aimed at determining the maximum roll
05:15angle for passenger airliners.
05:17Look!
05:18The 254-ton airplane took off at an angle close to 90 degrees, almost like a fighter jet.
05:25Many people know airplanes shake during flight.
05:28Because of turbulence, tests of this kind are mandatory when building airliners.
05:34If the wings of an aircraft remained rigid, they would fall apart during turbulence.
05:39That's why the wings of modern passenger planes are very flexible.
05:43Each wing can easily handle loads 1.5 times greater than any experience during flight.
05:51And the wing deflection can reach up to 5 million to be continued.
05:55Moreover, the final test involves breaking off the wings.
06:00Yes, it's expensive, but it helps determine their strength limit and ensures that it far exceeds
06:07the predicted load level.
06:09In short, it's all to make sure that the wings definitely won't break off during flight.
06:13All of this is good, but there's another interesting question related to safety.
06:19Can hackers hack an airplane?
06:21A few years ago, the United States Department of Homeland Security commissioned an experiment
06:26asking a group of experts to hack the control system of a Boeing 757 that was set aside
06:32specifically for this purpose.
06:34It took the team just two days.
06:37And they only used equipment that could easily be brought through airport terminals.
06:43Moreover, they didn't even…
06:46The wings won't break off in flight.
06:51You, you, you, you, you, you are hardcore.
06:53What exactly they did, of course, is not disclosed.
06:56The aircraft designers already knew about the vulnerability, unlike the pilots at the experiment's
07:03results announcement.
07:04It is believed that the new Boeing models are protected from the discovered vulnerability,
07:09but nothing has been fixed in the older ones.
07:12Smaller companies, which mostly operate older Boeings, are unlikely to deal with this, considering
07:18that such aircraft firmware updates are extremely expensive procedures.
07:22Lightning!
07:24Such stress tests also exist, because on average, every commercial airplane is struck by lightning
07:30about once a year.
07:31Engineers use a special generator to produce lightning in artificial conditions, and direct
07:36it to strike the airplane at a specific spot.
07:39Nevertheless, despite all these tests and the minimal chance of about 1 in 3 billion, it
07:45is still impossible to guarantee 100% flight safety.
07:49That's why different proposals regularly appear, for example, to turn the passenger cabin into
07:56a rescue capsule.
07:57In case of an emergency, it separates on parachutes, but this only works in theory.
08:03First of all, this design would be very expensive.
08:06And secondly, even if such things were built, they would save the lives of a very small number
08:12of passengers.
08:13Why is it assumed that a detachable passenger cabin would be useful if the engine fails?
08:20But that's exactly what happens very rarely.
08:23In the past 10 years, such failures have caused less than 3% of all fatal accidents.
08:30Things are much worse during takeoff and landing, when a detachable passenger cabin is useless.
08:36Moreover, when the plane takes off or lands, it is usually near a populated area.
08:43Now imagine what the consequences would be if the cabin with passengers fell on someone's
08:49house.
08:50However, the idea itself is not bad, and actually works with some limitations in small aviation.
08:56Watch this footage.
08:58These are examples of how the parachute system saves the lives of pilots and passengers of
09:03small aircraft.
09:04With large aircraft, first of all, it's not cost-effective.
09:08And secondly, at their speeds, using a parachute would lead to even worse consequences.
09:13That's why it's considered easier to land even outside an airfield, somewhere in a field,
09:18or even on a river, rather than use a parachute system.
09:22Naturally, the most common and logical question any passenger asks after seeing footage like
09:27this is, where is my personal parachute?
09:30Remember that joke about the night flight, when all the passengers are sleeping between
09:35the seats, and the captain sneaks by with a parachute on his back.
09:39When a passenger wakes and asks, what's going on?
09:42He answers, go back to sleep.
09:45Everything's fine.
09:46I just have some trouble at work.
09:48Jokes aside, but to put it briefly, you can't count on a personal parachute.
09:53And to explain in detail, here's the thing.
09:56First of all, if an airliner were to carry parachutes for all passengers and crew, that
10:02would be tons of extra weight, which means less luggage for people and sky-high ticket prices.
10:09Another point is that a parachute can only be used at certain speeds.
10:13For example, a standard military parachute is rated for no more than 400 km per hour, while
10:20most airliners fly at an average speed of 800 km per hour.
10:24If you jump out at that speed and open the parachute right away, it will simply tear apart.
10:29Basically, you can jump out and free fall until your horizontal speed drops below 400 km per
10:37hour.
10:38But only an experienced skydiver can do that.
10:41For a beginner, that's an extreme load.
10:44And besides, it's not that easy to know when your speed has dropped enough.
10:48A standard airliner's route is at an altitude of 10 to 12 km, and if there's depressurization,
10:54or the doors open at that height, everyone in the cabin without an oxygen mask will at the
10:59very least lose consciousness, and possibly even die.
11:03You need oxygen tanks and special helmets.
11:07And you should look about the same as an Imperial stormtrooper in full gear, not comfortably sitting
11:13in a t-shirt waiting to arrive at your favorite Turkish hotel.
11:16And really, what is flight safety anyway?
11:19Literally, the term flight safety sounds as follows.
11:24Flight safety is the condition of an aviation system or organization in which the risks associated
11:30with aviation activities related to the operation of aircraft are reduced to an acceptable level
11:36and are controlled.
11:37In other words, a certain percentage of casualties is implied, but this percentage must be kept
11:43to an absolute minimum, and all risks associated with aviation activities must be controlled
11:49and ideally reduced to zero.
11:5115 years ago, this meant that for every 1.2 million passengers transported, no more than
11:57one passenger was lost.
11:59First, if you set the bar lower, you can reduce the cost of flights, but safety is compromised.
12:05If you set it higher, you can achieve better passenger survival rates through incredibly
12:10complex measures, but the ticket price will be significantly higher.
12:14So, this is an optimization problem, where you need to achieve flight conditions that are
12:19safe enough, but at the same time, it doesn't cost $200,000 for a one-way ticket.
12:24In terms of safety, civil aviation is in first place among other means of transportation,
12:30and trains are considered second safest for passengers.
12:35At the same time, nobody is afraid of trains, but many people are afraid of flying on airplanes.
12:40As they say, we have two news items for you, one bad, one good.
12:45Let's start with the bad one.
12:47If something major goes wrong and the plane starts to fall, it will crash regardless.
12:52After all, these things are made to fly, not to fall and stay intact.
12:58No matter what the engineers do, it can't be avoided.
13:01That's why, usually, no one tries to keep the airplane's body intact during a crash.
13:06People today focus on making airplanes lighter, more aerodynamic, and more durable.
13:13Special attention is given to composite materials.
13:15They can reduce the weight by 20%.
13:19Moreover, humanity has already done something similar before.
13:23Back in the days of the Wright brothers, airplanes were made from sticks and cloth, meaning wood
13:28and fabric.
13:29Then for more than 60 years, they were made from aluminum, until people figured out composite
13:35materials.
13:36They were first introduced in the design of military aircraft in the 1960s, but, as is
13:41usually the case, everything gradually transitioned from the military sector to civil aviation.
13:48For example, in the Boeing 777, which has been produced since 1993, composites made up 12%.
13:56But in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which has been flying since 2019, composites already make
14:03up about 50%.
14:05In the Airbus A350, introduced in 2015, composites already account for 53%.
14:12But it must be admitted that no matter how amazing composite materials are, they have their drawbacks.
14:19Yes, they are lightweight.
14:21But detecting damage in a fuselage made from such materials is much more difficult than if
14:27it were made from metal.
14:28And this can be critically important.
14:30On April 28, 1988, an Aloha Airlines plane took off from Hilo to Honolulu at an altitude
14:38of 7,300 meters.
14:40A section of the plane's roof suddenly tore off.
14:43There was an explosion, decompression.
14:46One of the flight attendants was simply blown out of the plane, and eight more people were
14:50seriously injured.
14:52But the aircraft managed to land.
14:56One of the passengers later said that she noticed a crack in the fuselage when she was boarding,
15:05but she didn't tell anyone about it.
15:08Could the crack have caused the plane crash?
15:11Quite possibly.
15:12Nowadays, engineers have equipment that helps them assess when metal is fatigued and detect
15:18such cracks.
15:19But when it comes to composite materials, finding such damage is much more difficult, which means
15:25the risk of such incidents may increase.
15:28Let's end on a positive note.
15:30There's no need to be afraid of flying.
15:32There has never been a case in history where a plane that took off didn't return to Earth.
15:36Even in the show Kalambur, which your parents loved, during the steep dive storyline, they
15:42still landed.
15:43In the next episode, we look forward to your jokes, new or old, on the video's topic in the
15:48comments.
15:49It'll be interesting to read them.
15:51Thank you for watching, and see you in future episodes on our channel.
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