Heat84
Heat84 Why can't they put something like a cow catcher that trains have on the front of the engines on plane engines to deflect the birds away?
Design constraints:
- fuel is damn expensive
bigger fans give higher "bypass ratio"
higher "bypass ratio" gives better fuel economy
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_LEAP "Specifications" section for an example of Y - U - U - G - E fan sizes (69-to-78 inches diameter; over 6 feet).
Sidebar: The newest turbofan is so large that it doesn't fit properly under the wing of a 737 MAX. So Boeing moved the engine forward and upwards. This changed the flight characteristics of the 737 MAX, introducing some nose-up tendency. The plane is perfectly fly-able in that configuration, but its flight characteristics are different.
Expensive solution: 737 pilots would have to be retrained and re-certified for the different flight nose-up bias.
El-cheapo solution: Introduce MCAS for a nose-down bias, behind the pilot's back, to make the MAX fly like previous 737s, so you don't have to retrain+recertify thousands of pilots.
The bean-counters triumphed.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it... is to design a deflector, approx 7 feet in diameter, that can withstand bird strikes at cruising speeds around 840 km/h (560 mph)... but is porous enough to allow enough air through for the jet engine to operate economically.