On 25 Aug 2004 16:45:33 -0500, oD (Bob
Kaplow) wrote:

In article , (B2431) writes:
I wonder if there has ever been a collision between an aircraft and a model
rocket.

Never. One of our members was a Navy captain and had access to a DOD study.
Using Mach 5 sounding rockets and radar slaved launchers, they fired a
battery of rounds at target drones. They initially thought they'd be
successful about 1 in 10. Afterwards they revised that to less than 1 in
1000000. And that's with radar and many Mach 5 rockets. We have neither, and
we don't try.

Sounds like the big sky theory... There are 10s of thousands of cubic
miles of atmosphere, but planes still collide (and they certainly
aren't trying either).

I would be willing to bet that somewhere, a model rocket has hit a GA
plane.

However, the risk is really minimal. Even if one hits a plane, it is
probably no worse than hitting a small bird.

Out of curiousity, how fast are the model rockets moving?

-Nathan