Question
: What happens if a bird gets sucked into a jet fighter's engine? Skyler
Answer : Skyler, Thanks for the question. Engineers spend lots of time designing jet engines to be efficient, light and to withstand damage. Most of the time, the bird is sliced up and goes through the engine with little or no damage to the engine, (but lots of damage to the bird). If the bird is very large, it can hurt the engine, but the FAA conducts tests to see that the damage is limited to just the engine, and that it can be safely shut down. There is an interesting video of the GE-90 (a very large jet engine) being tested for water, debris and bird ingestion. See the link below. This might give you an idea of what ingesting a bird in flight is like. By the way, in 27 years of flying, I have hit birds about 6 times, only once in the engine (on an F-16) and no real damage.
Lt Col (ret) Mike Carter, USAF F-16 Pilot Airline Pilot
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