Slashdot Mirror


The Tech Behind Preventing Airplane Bird Strikes

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."

13 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  2. Re:engine redesign? by Volante3192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you were an engineer you'd realize it wasn't that easy...

  3. Re:It was more than one bird by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is the little matter of the difference in speed between the plane and the bird too...

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  4. Re:It was more than one bird by TheCybernator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    innovative thought!
    but how you gonna test it?

  5. what about audio? by mapkinase · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's the audio reception spectrum of birds? Can we add some sound that we do not hear and they hear?

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  6. Now unemployed by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe if we just posted Cheney at the end of the runway with a shotgun...

  7. Re:Not that hard. by boldi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They also use hawks here, in Hungary, Eu.

    The nice thing about hawks is that they don't strike.

  8. Re:Take a cue from office buildings by pluther · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem there is that most modern jet craft move faster than your average office building.

    --
    If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
  9. Re:falconers by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Not that hard. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You're one of those guys who thinks he has a sense of humor, right?

  11. Re:What about by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No problem. Just be prepared to pay five times as much for your tickets.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  12. Re:What about by Country_hacker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hang on if I'm understanding what everyone is saying. We're going to take hundreds of tons of metal, people, and highly flammable liquid, hurl them into the air at high speeds, not just once but thousands of times per day all over the country, and not expect shit to happen?

    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 in the 70-odd years we've been doing this, that's low enough to be acceptable risk.

    --
    Never give any object more potential energy than you want it to have.
  13. Re:The IT Solution - More Redundancy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It is more a case of how far apart the engines are...If you fly through a flock you may well take out all the engines no matter how many there are. I haven't heard of it happening with birds but there was a case where a 747 flew through an eruption cloud from a volcano and all the engines stopped. They had a long somewhat heart stopping glide until they managed to get enough engines going again to make it to the nearest runway.

    Redundancy is not easy even in IT or telecommunications...after 40 years in the latter field I am prepared to say that there is always a way that a failure can occur, even if you can't figure out how it could beforehand.