Welcome to migration season. The birds are out there -- even (and in some cases, especially) after dark. The conflict between aircraft and birds is a real and growing problem -- about 60,000 bird strikes to U.S. aircraft were reported to the FAA from 1990 to 2003, and perhaps four times that many went unreported. A 12-pound Canada goose struck by a 150-mph aircraft, says the Bird Strike Committee USA, generates the force of a 1,000-pound weight dropped from a height of 10 feet. Damage to aircraft is estimated at $400 million per year, and up to 400 (human) deaths have been blamed on collisions with birds. During the spring and fall migration, activity levels are high. Now new radar systems, being tested in Alaska, Scotland and elsewhere, might help to mitigate the hazard. Voluminous statistics on the interaction between birds and airplanes are kept by the Bird Strike Committee USA, a volunteer group comprising representatives from the FAA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense and the aviation industry. The committee says that between 1990 and 2002, waterfowl accounted for 31 percent of the reported strikes that caused damage to aircraft, gulls for 29 percent, and raptors (hawks and other birds of prey) 17 percent. Other fun facts from the Bird Strike Committee: Starlings are "feathered bullets," having a body density 27 percent higher than herring gulls. North America's Canada goose population tripled from 1990 to 2002, to 3.5 million birds. The Great Lakes cormorant population grew from about 200 nesting adults in 1970 to 230,000 nesting adults in 2000, a 1,000-fold increase. Pelican populations in the U.S. have grown at annual rates up to 8.5 percent since 1980, meaning the population doubles approximately every eight years.
...New Warning Systems Under Development...
Warning systems that try to locate and track birds in flight and communicate real-time information to pilots are still experimental. The Avian
Research Laboratory, in Panama City, Fla., is working on an automated ground-based radar system to detect birds at a Scotland military base. Jerry Grimm, director of the laboratory, told AVweb the system is capable of detecting a bird as small as a sparrow up to two nautical miles away. But the equipment is subject to all of radar's limitations and glitches, such as clutter, slow update rates and poor resolution of small targets. Still, "it's giving a very good indication of where the birds are," Grimm said. His gear is also designed to run automatically, an advantage over some other systems. For example, a system that is being tested at Alaska's Elmendorf Air
Force Base requires a manned station at all times, Grimm said. However, the radar display is available only to air traffic controllers, and nothing is in the works that would provide a real-time display to pilots in the cockpit.
Grimm noted that conflict between birds and aircraft is a result of many factors besides the growth in avian populations. Airports provide an attractive habitat for birds, with open grassy spaces and shelter provided by shade trees and open hangars. Many airports are sited in remote areas or close to coastal areas where open spaces and wildlife refuges may be nearby. Also, he said birds are often active at night, foraging or migrating, and especially at dusk and dawn, making it that much more difficult for pilots to see and avoid. At Elmendorf, an experimental bird-radar system is being used to help develop accurate forecasts of daily bird migrations. Wildlife biologist Herman Griese said the system has been able to detect much higher bird densities than those reported previously. "The extrapolated number of birds in the air at peak densities we observed should be a grave concern for pilots," Griese said. The experimental system is proving useful, he said, but pilots need technology that would allow real-time advisories.
...As FAA Maps Hazard Zones, And Other Critters Intrude
The FAA is working to develop a wildlife-hazards advisory system that would integrate radar data with the Bird Avoidance Model, or (it's not April 1, yet) BAM, that has been used with some success by the U.S. military. (There also exists a military Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard ... [BASH] team.) The BAM approach is not a real-time detection system, but depends on collecting and analyzing data to document and predict the presence of birds and map known bird strikes so hazardous areas can be delineated and aircraft can choose flight paths that avoid them. The FAA's BAM maps are available online, and classify the risks at low, moderate or severe. But birds are not the only wildlife that conflict with aircraft -- many airports are having problems with deer on the runway. More than 600 civil aircraft collisions with deer were reported in the U.S. from 1990 to 2003. Other animals that have been reported in runway collisions include coyotes, raccoons, moose and alligators. The FAA has an online photo collection
showing the damage these incidents can inflict on aircraft of all sizes. NTSB investigator John Goglia
has been a longtime crusader about the dangers of bird strikes. He says airports and the FAA need to be more aggressive about making the areas around airports less inviting to birds. "I think it's just a matter of time before we're going to have an event that will make us wish we had dealt with the problem earlier," he told the St. Petersburg Times this week. Goglia will retire from the NTSB next month.
From AVWEB March 24, 2004; Written by the AVWEB editorial Staff The best source for aviation news is AVWEB
Welcome to migration season. The birds are out there -- even (and in some cases, especially) after dark. The conflict between aircraft and birds is a real and growing problem -- about 60,000 bird strikes to U.S. aircraft were 
Warning systems that try to locate and track birds in flight and communicate real-time information to pilots are still experimental. The 
The FAA is working to develop a wildlife-hazards advisory system that would integrate radar data with the Bird Avoidance Model, or (it's not April 1, yet) BAM, that has been used with some success by the U.S. military. (There also exists a military