Yeah... your typical aircraft is not reaching Mach 20 where a hole would cause high temperatures leading to structural failure. Concerns about balloons and such can be valid but a comparison to Columbia is a big stretch.

Clearly i should have added more words as I thought it was obvious I was just comparing projectile vs target; ie, just because an object is small or light doesn't mean it can't cause significant damage, and we don't have a lot of research into it.

If it penetrates the wing, can it hit the fuel tank?

And 6lb of metal hits different than 6lb of goose, depending on what it hits. Hail can destroy a radome.

Fuel tanks are kevlar-lined nowadays, no? Certainly that doesn't make them invulnerable, but they can take quite a beating before they start leaking or worse.

That's not the point and you know it. Don't be pedantic. It doesn't help the conversation. The above poster is saying that even small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines.

I'm not being pedantic. I'm pointing out that the example is a corner case that is irrelevant to this topic.

> The above poster is saying that even small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines.

That's a very generic statement. Are you sure that was their real point? Not something more specific to air strikes?

It was my point, and i thought it was clear enough that it was just a comparison of projectile to target, and the damage a tiny object can cause; I should have added more words, maybe. Most at NASA thought that the foam couldn't have damaged the spacecraft, and they were wrong.

If a drone penetrates the wing, we don't really know if it can make it to the fuel tank when it hits at 500...

If your point is "small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines" then it's not helpful, because we have more specific information for planes that overrides such a generic statement.

Who's being pedantic here? The conversation is about a complete fiction, since a balloon never caused an airliner to crash. Why do we have to entertain that scenario that never actually happened, and how does that help the conversation about the danger of balloons to air traffic?

> The above poster is saying that even small problems can lead to catastrophic consequences in complicated machines.

Sure, but they picked an example that's outside of this kind of aircraft's spec, so it's not clear that it's applicable. Bad examples deserve to be called out.