#1187: Hooverfly

I’m always interested in ways to deal with birdstrikes on jet planes.

Today’s invention is basically a Dyson vortex vacuum cleaner cylinder bolted to the front of a jet engine.

Blades inside the sleeve rotate the incoming air (not so much as to churn the incoming flow to the fan, but enough to deflect say a 1kg bird to the periphery and exhaust it, as shown).

My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that it might be possible to get a bird out of the way using a tube ~3m long, but the extra fuel costs, due to drag and weight, are harder to quantify).