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by aaron695 1283 days ago
It doesn't look like a drone.

Although possible, war planes should not be as affected by strikes.

Why do you think it's a drone?

3 comments

> war planes should not be as affected by strikes.

There is nothing special about a war plane that makes it less affected by strikes of any kind, be from birds or drones alike.

A bullet-proof windshield protects the most vulnerable part (the pilot) a lot better than any civilian plane can.
Most (practically all) aircraft do not have bullet-proof windshields (including military), for starters, and secondly a several pound meat ball travelling at closing speeds anywhere between 60kts (GA) to 200+ kts (jets/airliners/mil) is going to do a number on the aircraft regardless if it incapacitated the pilot.

Doubly-so if it's a several pound metal ball...

You don't want to hit anything in an aircraft, ever.

Bulletproof windshields were very common during this period, although 43-11719 doesn't appear to have been fitted with one, likely because the F variant never advanced beyond the prototype stage.

https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/caf-bell-p-63f...

I may have missed it, but I don't see anywhere in that linked article that mentions bullet proof windscreens... and Wikipedia for the aircraft also makes no mention. Plus, we're not just talking about this particular aircraft in this incident, but generally all aircraft.

But, I would not be surprised it was tried, particularly with WWII era machines. There's very little actual benefit to having one on any aircraft, even CAS aircraft. A modernly restored version meant for airshows and racing probably would have replaced it for something more modern and lighter weight.

Look at the 12th photo in the gallery, which shows the cockpit from the right-hand door. No armored windscreen.

There's no particular reason for wikipedia to mention it because it was a very common feature in this era. It would be like mentioning that it had self-sealing fuel tanks. It was also a feature that could be present or not between different models, and could even be retrofitted to a plane once it was in service.

Regarding the wreck-finder below: he likely does know exactly what it was because he likely started by looking up the crash report (and based on his claimed date, it's probably s/n, 44-2031)

This is exactly what a typical armored windscreen looked like in this era (e.g. https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/armored-windscreen-for...)

> Most (practically all) aircraft do not have bullet-proof windshields (including military)

The P-63 did (example picture [0]), like many others that were designed to attack bombers and/or ground targets.

[0] https://www.flickr.com/photos/23057174@N02/3031666813

The person in the picture is speculating it's a bullet proof windshield, and he's mistaken (particularly from the P-39 aircraft mentioned in the link). If you look at both a P-63 and P-39 you will not find any windshield or window that is even remotely shaped like what is held in the image.

Regardless, modernly speaking, very few (if any) aircraft have bullet proof windshields. They are impractical for a number of reasons, including weight, size, thickness (distortion of picture), and efficacy. If a pilot is within small-arms distance they generally are already in trouble...

Actually, I'd say the most vulnerable part for a strike in a single engine craft is the engine, which sits ahead of the cabin. At low altitudes there's precious little time to correct for any sort of engine failure.
The P-63 has the engine behind the pilot.
There's zero time to fix a dead pilot in a plane with only one seat.
It looks like a small black spec a few hundred feet off the ground to me. Drone seems pretty likely. Perhaps it's junk that fell off another aircraft, it could be a satellite falling to Earth for all I know, but drone seems like the first hypothesis to rule out. Or that the footage is inauthentic I suppose.
(My current understanding is now that the footage being inauthentic or misunderstood is the most likely.)
Vouched for your comment. It looks like you are shadowbanned. You might want to send an email to HN.
Looking through their comments, it's pretty clear they know they're banned, why they're banned, spoke with dang about it at the time, and embraced being banned (I think because they feel it filters out low effort replies? Their statement was on the matter was terse, but semiparphrasing they said "I'm aiming for a shadowban" because "replies are the worst").
Oh OK, I didnt look in detail.
How can you tell that someone is shadowbanned?
All their comments are dead
I don't get it. How do you know that GP is shadowbanned? The post looks just like a normal post to me; I'm not even sure what it means for it to be dead.
if part of the way the shadowban works is that the banee isn't alerted, why are you alerting them which works against "the system"?
Because "the system" might have made a mistake. And even if the shadowban was warranted at some time, the poster might have improved their conduct in the meantime and should be given another chance.

Usually, when I see a reasonable but dead comment, I vouch for it. If the commenter is shadowbanned and their other most recent comments are also reasonable and civil, I (sometimes) alert them to their status.