Bird Radar Developed For Air Force
POSTED: 1:01 am EST February 19, 2005
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The 29,000 acres of Tyndall Air Force Base are populated with countless bird species ranging from seagulls and ospreys to egrets, doves and black vultures.
The wings and feathers are great for show, but the birds, along with other ground-dwelling wildlife on base, pose a threat to the installation's more than $3 billion in aircraft and the pilots who fly them.
Through the Bird and Wildlife Strike Hazard, or BASH program, base personnel use various safeguards while rarely resorting to lethal methods to avert collisions with birds and ground-dwelling wildlife.
A new system being developed by Panama City-based DeTect Inc. is expected to boost BASH efforts.
The $250,000 Bird-Aircraft Collision Avoidance Radar System will scan for birds and provide computer images uncluttered by trees and other obstructions.
Data collected is expected to help Tyndall staff pinpoint area populations and their flight patterns. The mobile system is scheduled for delivery this month.
"Our main goal is, we don't want anybody getting killed," said Master Sgt. Michael Simons, Tyndall's flight safety noncommissioned officer and BASH manager. "We don't want our airplanes that are paid for by taxpayers to sustain major damage on something we have some control over."
A similar DeTect system is in place at an Air Force bombing range in North Carolina; however, DeTect president Ron Merritt said Tyndall will be the first Air Force base where the system is used.
"There's a number of reasons Tyndall got selected," Merritt said. "One is, we're right here. I think the other thing is, Tyndall has another airframe out there, a new aircraft which is very, very expensive. When you suck a bird into the engine, the amount of damage can be significant."
Tyndall is the training site for the F/A-22 Raptor, the most expensive jet fighter in history. The base currently has 18 Raptors, each valued at about $133 million.
Along with the new radar system, Simons said Air Force officials also are considering adding a civilian specialist to help control the base's bird population.
"We've augmented the base out here with the F/A-22," he said. "National defense has been upgraded. Because of that, we need to upgrade our BASH program."
Since October, when fiscal year 2005 began, nine air strike accidents involving Tyndall aircraft have occurred, including a collision between an F-15 and a palm-sized catbird that resulted in more than $1 million in repairs.
During the last three decades, 37 Air Force aircraft have been destroyed and 35 fatalities have resulted from bird strikes, according to the Air Force Aviation Safety Division Web site. In fiscal 2004 alone, Air Force-wide damages from birds exceeded $45 million.
About 90 percent of the pilots who hit birds see them coming, Simons said. When a strike occurs, feathers and other remains are collected from the aircraft and sent to a Smithsonian Institute lab for identification.
The more that is known, the easier it is to make the area less attractive to that species and avoid future collisions, Simons said.
"We've got to share the same airspace with the birds," he said.
Driving around Tyndall's flight line Friday morning, Simons watched for wildlife, occasionally spotting birds along the tree line that surrounds the main runways. The scarcity of birds is a testament to bird-control efforts, he said.
To keep birds away, Simons tries to make the area unattractive to wildlife, keeping the grass cut at between 7 and 14 inches and minimizing standing water. If birds fly into the runway area, airfield management personnel use noisemakers to scare them away.
Still, there have been cases where birds have refused to leave, he said. One particularly stubborn egret had to be killed after it perched itself on the wing of a taxiing plane several years ago and could not be captured, Simons said.
The flight line area is scanned almost constantly. Based on the bird activity, the supervisor of flying can upgrade the base's bird watch condition from low to moderate or severe. If the watch moves to severe, Simons said aircraft cannot fly in and out of the base.
"In a peacetime environment, it's not worth it," he said.
[B]
http://www.local6.com/news/4214075/detail.html