The Tech Behind Preventing Airplane Bird Strikes 242
the4thdimension writes "CNN is running an article covering the technology used at Sea-Tac for preventing airplane bird strikes, like the one that occurred weeks ago to the now famous Flight 1549. The hardware used ranges from low-tech pyrotechnics, to netting, to lasers, to avian radar. Using a combination of all these technologies, Sea-Tac believes they save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in avoiding dangerous bird strikes."
Not that hard. (Score:5, Funny)
We just need to build a fence to keep these Canadian terrorists out. Migrating, my ass.
Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Funny)
Clean energy and less birds.. guess you could say that's killing two birds with one stone?
*ducks* (or should I say geese?)
Ok, I'm leaving now.
Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Funny)
Those puns were so fowl.
Re:Not that hard. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Funny)
Dogs would be useful but it'd be a lot more fun if we could get a pterodactyl out there hunting the birds.
And then Mothra to hunt the pterodactyl to prevent THEM from getting sucked into engines, and then Godzilla to in turn keep mothras from taking down planes.
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Then you'd need giant gorillas like King Kong to keep get rid of Godzilla. The beauty of the plan is that once winter sets in, the giant gorillas will simply freeze to death.
Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Interesting)
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There's a turducken joke in there somewhere.
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Now if you've got those flying type dogs...lets talk.
Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Informative)
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They also use hawks here, in Hungary, Eu.
The nice thing about hawks is that they don't strike.
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Re:Not that hard. (Score:5, Interesting)
You joke, but this general problem has come up in the past.
Back in the old days when trains were the major form of transportation, there were snowblower engines called Elliot-Jull rotary snowplows [narhf.org] that looked pretty much like the compressor sections of jet engines. The blades spun like mad and they cut paths through deep snow. Sometimes the snow would actually be 8 meters deep when they finally got a rotary to it, so they were just smashing into a wall of snow (literally: they'd put three or four engines behind one of these and get up a head of steam (the origin of the term) and smash into a snowfield.)
The problem was that often the railroad bed was sheltered, because they'd cut it through a hill, so a herd of cattle or deer would take cover in the shelter and get buried alive by the snowfall, and then the rotary would come through and run into them.
A flock of seagulls, or even canada geese, is nothing compared to 200 head of cattle, chopped into fragments and then frozen again when the rotary stalled on the debris. They'd have to tow it into the nearest shop and break out the blowtorches, and basically rebuild the entire front of the engine.
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Um ... no. Unless those crazy gene-mixing biologists have managed to create flying dogs (with friggin' lasers?), all you're going to do is chase the birds away from the ground - where they're unlikely to cause problems - into the air - where they're very likely to cause problems.
We do occasionally make use of falcons, though. Not sure how widespread the practice is, but it seems to work fai
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Falcons ON Dobermans.
With freakin' lasers.
3) Profit!
FTW!
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Yeah, alright, it MIGHT lower the odds of a bird ingestion on takeoff, which is the worst time for it to happen. But for major airports there's really no such thing as "between flights", at least not on a timescale that would allow for screwing around with dogs. And it really doesn't solve the general problem; namely, bird ingestion in the airspace immediately adjacent to the airport. If you're going to make use of any animals, I'd stick with hawks.
What about (Score:2)
just putting some titanium chicken wire over the front of the intake so that a bird can't get in?
Re:What about (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you'll get bird plus titanium wire in the engine instead of just bird.
There just isn't a material strong enough. Any structure that would reliably keep the birds out would be unaccepetably heavy and would restrict air flow.
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Wonder if braided carbon nano fiber wires would be strong enough and thin enough to slice these birds. After all, they are light and strong enough for space elevators!
Light - Check
Strong - Check
Allow air flow - Check
Commonly available - Not Check
Last point, this is where ingenuity and innovation comes in. Further, now that I have this on slashdot, hopefully no one can patent this idea.
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Ummm..... Correction, when I said Carbon nano fiber, I mean Carbon nanotubes material. The stuff for space elevators.
Re:What about (Score:5, Funny)
If birds are so tough, how come we don't just make the whole plane out of birds?
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No problem. Just be prepared to pay five times as much for your tickets.
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So at high speeds instead of getting one big bird you get thousands of tiny pieces of bird... I'm not entirely sure thats better.
Interesting timing on this article for me since I actually have to fly to Seattle\Tacoma airport next week...
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Interesting timing on this article for me since I actually have to fly to Seattle\Tacoma airport next week...
You mean "have to fly most of the wayto Seattle\Tacoma airport next week."
Wear warm clothes.
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I wouldn't necessarily say "survive just fine". I've handled the unserviceable blades from several minor bird strikes, and the impact in some cases is enough to dent three or four adjacent blades. Not to the point where it damages the rest of the engine, I believe, but enough that they need changing.
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You're a bit off here. It is NOT a requirement that an engine survive a bird ingestion, only that it shut down safely, i.e. without any of the fans coming apart. And engines do tend to take some significant damage [wikipedia.org] when they ingest birds.
To make things worse, the tests are done assuming a 4 lb. bird, but Canada Geese like the ones involved in the recent incident average 7-14 lbs.
And the tests aren't actually done with chickens anymore. They use a block of gelatin now; much easier to clean up.
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Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)
Bird bones are not the concern; they're hollow, lightweight, and brittle. It's the weighty mass of muscle that causes the damage.
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Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)
Then you get birds stuck in the titanium chicken wire, and the engine has a good shot of now sucking in both the bird and the chicken wire. On top of that, even if that doesn't happen, you're still seriously impeding air flow into the engine which is needed to make the engine function.
And according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] at least, a typical modern jet engine shunts dead bird parts through a bypass rather than through the engine.
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Not quite. What they're talking about there is the difference between a turbojet and a turbofan.
People seem to assume that "the engine" is the entire thing you see hanging off the wing. Really, the engine is a fraction of the diameter of what you're seeing - a lot of the rest is plumbing and bypass ducts. The big fan you see on the front does the same job as a propeller,
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It's been looked into extensively already, any screen fine enough to prevent smaller birds from getting sucked into the engine has a massive effect on the engine's performance.
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Don't get me wrong, I understand we want to do everything in our power to make flight as safe as possible. But this is the first known incident of a dual flameout due to bird strikes in the history of commercial flight, right? I'd say
the secret? (Score:5, Funny)
Always fly over rivers wide enough to land on!
bird strikes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:bird strikes (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer to bully the bird union leaders, and threaten to hire bird scabs in the event of a strike.
Seinfeld (Score:2)
Re:bird strikes (Score:5, Funny)
I think we need some sort of high-tech bird monitoring network, complete with identity cards for each bird, so we can find the bad actors. Naturally we'll want to monitor their communications, so we'll need blanket audio coverage of the entire US, as well as several hundred miles in all directions offshore. We must systematically capture and detain any birds that hang out near airports, and any birds they may have associated or mated with. We should also build fences, very large fences to keep out the birds that aren't here natively, who wish to cross our borders undetected. We must screen any potential migrating birds for poor waste hygiene, erratic flight patterns, or impure thoughts. We should root our their nests of evil, and as a bonus, we can eat their unborn babies, perhaps in an omelet or in some sort of fried rice dish, or we can use them to improve the consistency of our baked goods. One thing is for sure: when the birds strike again, and you can be sure they'll try, the next time it will be OUR fault if they succeed. We had the warning. We have it within our means to stop them. We perhaps lack only the resolve and the patriotism required. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America, land of the free from birds, and the home of The Bravados.
My solution (Score:2, Funny)
Kill all birds.
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Uncle Dick and I were working on that, but you voted us out of office.
George.
falconers (Score:5, Informative)
This seems to be about that, though I'm not sure if it was the article I saw: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/02/01/2009-02-01_untitled__falcon01m.html [nydailynews.com]
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A 747 painted similarly to a Flying Tigers P-40 Warhawk? That would scare any bird that saw it.
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I read recently an article about how they actually use falcons at JFK to prevent bird strikes.
This seems to be about that, though I'm not sure if it was the article I saw: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/02/01/2009-02-01_untitled__falcon01m.html [nydailynews.com]
DiFulco said the PA doesn't use falconry at LaGuardia because it is "effective against gulls, not geese." He said gulls are "the primary birds at issue at JFK, but not at LGA," where geese pose the main threat.
Then there are some counter-arguments made, but I can understand why they wouldn't be effective against geese. The geese that hit US Airways 1549 were apparently a flock of migrating birds at around 3,000 feet that just happened to wander into an airplane's flight path. They weren't "at" the airpor
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but I can understand why they wouldn't be effective against geese.
Perhaps I'm being too simplistic, but I'd guess that falcons just don't hunt geese.
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Toronto FC's home ground of BMO Field used to have a problem with seagulls. Bizarre considering it's a turf and not grass pitch. Then they got a hawk, affectionately named by the fans "Bitchy". There's no problem now.
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I read recently an article about how they actually use falcons at JFK to prevent bird strikes.
Don't you think clearing birds with an F-16 [wikipedia.org] is a little overkill?
Another idea? (Score:2)
I have had another idea [yes, patent pending :-] ... why not a pyramid cone shaped cover protecting the air intake? The cone would extend enough to allow adequate air intake (from now the sides). I'm doing the math to determine if at the top of the cone it should be solid (not open) as that area of intake would be affecting air flow over the top of the wing (thus screwing with lift). Keep in mind that the air intake (where ever it happens) has nothing to do with being able to fly -- nor does the output (thr
Re:Another idea? (Score:5, Funny)
This idea was invented by Shampoo...
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Pert or Head and Shoulders? Perhaps Suave?
That some pretty smart soap.
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A couple issues with putting a cone over the inlet of a subsonic engine.
1) If you restrict airflow to only entering from the sides, you're going to have massive separation bubbles as that flow has to turn 90 degrees to enter an axial engine. That results in a loss of efficiency and significantly reduces engine performance.
2) The added weight of this would kill the proposal for any aircraft manufacturer out there.
And not to be pedantic, but the inlet and thrust has a lot to do with whether something flies or
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When you see semis being powered by jet engines, let me know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFIGIGY9DUw [youtube.com]
I thought everyone knew about these.
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Because engines don't work like that. You need a LOT of air to run a jet engine. The intake has much to do with being able to fly. By blocking the front of the engine and trusting you can get enough air in from whatever limited space to the sides you have created, you'll force a compressor stall very quickly, if you can get enough air into the engine to start it at all.
There's a reason why there is little variation in jet engine design.
Anyway, putting a cone in front of the engine far enough will generat
Falcons (Score:5, Informative)
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Or paint some falcon pics/silhouttes on various parts of the plane fuselage.
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How about make the planes look like huge falcons- paint eyes on them, paint the undersides and wings so they look a bit like soaring raptors from below. Or paint some falcon pics/silhouttes on various parts of the plane fuselage.
Well, they like to clear the birds BEFORE the planes are in the air...
It was more than one bird (Score:5, Interesting)
Most birds use parallax to get their 3D cues. Think about it, for something that lives in full 3D space, most birds do not have stereoscopic vision. Their eyes are wide apart facing opposite directions with very little overlap. If the plane approaches the birds in such a way that the bearing (direction, angle) of the plane as seen by the bird is constant, the bird thinks the plane is part of the background, it is at infinity! That is why they don't take evasive action. If we put a series of LED lights along the length of the plane and turn them off and on to produce streaks of lights running from nose to tail, it will interrupt their visual cues and make the plane stand out from the background. That will give cues to the birds about the real position of the airplane. They will avoid us, we don't have to avoid them.
Re:It was more than one bird (Score:5, Insightful)
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innovative thought!
but how you gonna test it?
Birds thrown into engine (Score:2)
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With a special attachment, the engine also makes julienne fries!
Indiana Jones (Score:4, Funny)
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Too Many Secrets (Score:3, Funny)
Oh wait nevermind, SeaTec!
Take a cue from office buildings (Score:2)
All they need to do is paint a bunch of owl silhouettes on the side of the air plane and that should keep the birds away.
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The problem there is that most modern jet craft move faster than your average office building.
Re:Take a cue from office buildings (Score:5, Funny)
The problem there is that most modern jet craft move faster than your average office building.
Oh sure, on average.
Wind farms (Score:4, Funny)
Not Often Tom Leher Lyrics Work in a post (Score:5, Funny)
And caused much anxiety
In the Audobon Society
With my games...
They call it impiety
And lack of propriety
And boy.. a variety
Of unpleasant names
But it's not against any religion...
To want to dispose of... a pigeon...
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Perhaps if we payed them more... (Score:2, Funny)
Pointless (Score:5, Interesting)
Great effort on the part of SeaTac to keep birds off the runway. But it wouldn't have made a damned bit of difference to Flight 1549. From what I've seen online (not quite the official FAA report, but probably close enough), the bird strikes occurred several miles from the runway at around 3000 ft altitude.
In the case of SeaTac, approach and departure altitudes like these are seen as far away from the airport as 20 miles. On a few occasions, I've been watching little Piper Cubs/Cessnas/whatever buzzing around over my house at 3 to 5000 ft altitudes and seen a 747 fly in on approach to SeaTac underneath them. And I'm more than 20 miles from the airport. Its not likely that the FAA can keep the air clear of Canadian geese, bald eagles and other such birds over an area of more than 1200 square miles.
The only solution to preventing another 1549 incident is to keep commercial aircraft at higher altitudes for as long as possible.
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Informative)
Airlines would love to save gas by going right up to the point where they can cut the engines to idle and then coast in to the airport. But since everyone wants to do that it would create a traffic nightmare. They need a way to line everyone up on the same runway so they can space them out properly. And if it's cloudy, you need a way to make sure you can be lined up on your runway when you come out of the clouds. So they make instrument approaches that use navigation aids on the ground or GPS.
This works well at small airports, but busy ones have too many planes coming in so they make these things called a Standard Terminal Arrival Route (STAR). Everyone flies to one of these routes and then they join up to an instrument approach to land.
Airlines would love nothing more than to save gas by doing exactly what you suggest, and people on the ground would also like to not have airplanes buzzing their house at all hours of the day, but it's not even close to practicable.
Better idea. (Score:5, Funny)
We know birds hate Snakes.
Lets put Snakes on the planes. That way birds will avoid the plains to avoid the snakes.
I got that idea from a movie, I forgot what it was called.
It wasn't a bird strike (Score:5, Funny)
Keep the birds on the ground (Score:2)
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what about audio? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's the audio reception spectrum of birds? Can we add some sound that we do not hear and they hear?
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Now unemployed (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if we just posted Cheney at the end of the runway with a shotgun...
Re:Now unemployed (Score:5, Funny)
You'd have a lot of dead pilots?
How about a proactive approach. (Score:2)
I would imagine that most flocks, or even single birds, could be detected well in advance of impact by using radar or some other imaging device.
Perhaps using that technology, and some sort of explosive shell (think fireworks), they could clear a path through the flock (at least for the engines).
If the shell was powerful enough, it could actually use the force of the explosion to force the birds out of the flight path. If not, at least it would have the potential of scaring the flock into changing course.
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Plus it would give the people inside the plane an exciting ride, going through a concussion wave like that.
Like Ack-Ack?
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That's assuming that the concussion was near enough to be felt.
Obviously, with a larger concussion, the explosion would need to take place further ahead of the aircraft.
Major point they're missing (Score:5, Informative)
The techniques they use are valuable because they reduce the bird density right around the airfield, and having a multi-engine failure like what happened with 1549 had would be MUCH less survivable if it occurred immediately after takeoff.
IPv6. NOW! (Score:4, Funny)
If we FINALLY move to IPv6, there won't be nearly as many people using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers [wikipedia.org] , and thus, less birds hitting planes.
and yet (Score:2)
the technology used at Sea-Tac for preventing airplane bird strikes,
All this technology, and it didn't work..
Re:engine redesign? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were an engineer you'd realize it wasn't that easy...
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When traveling in excess of several hundred kilometers per hour, birds are hardly squishier than rocks...
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Sorry, but in engineering an aircraft you put a price tag on everything, including passengers. Look at the number of people who sue Boeing or Airbus whenever a plane crashes (regardless of the reason) and you'll see why.
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How many lives are lost because of bird strikes? We just had the worst bird strike event in memory, and no one died. Except the birds, I guess.
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Re:You are kidding arent you ? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't feed him. He's been posting this for a long time. ;)
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Wouldn't be an issue, if they would just control their damn geese.
Sounds like a job for Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles