For Airplane Safety, Trying To Keep Birds From Planes

The Narrative Fallacy writes "Every year pilots in the US report more than 5,000 bird strikes, which cause at least $400 million in damage to commercial and military aircraft. Now safety hearings are beginning on the crash of US Airways Flight 1549, where a flock of eight-pound geese apparently brought down a plane, plunging it and 155 people into the frigid waters of the Hudson River. Despite having experimented with everything from electromagnetics to ultrasonic devices to scarecrows, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has yet to endorse a single solution that will keep birds out of the path of an oncoming aircraft." (More below.) "The best bet right now is understanding bird behavior, although an intriguing old pilots' tale — that radar can scatter birds — may carry enough truth to ultimately offer a viable technical solution to a deadly problem. 'We need to find out, is that an urban legend or is there some truth to that?' says Robert L. Sumwalt, the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. The Federal Aviation Administration already has an extensive program in place for 'wildlife hazard mitigation,' but it seems ill suited to the problem that faced the US Airways flight, which struck geese five miles from the runway — too far for the New York airports to take action — at an altitude of 2,900 feet — too high for radars being installed around the country to detect birds. 'There's no silver bullet,' says Richard Dolbeer, a wildlife biologist and expert on bird strikes. 'There's no magic chemical you can spray or sound you can project that is going to scare the birds away.'"

Comments

Shoot them

[WilyCoder]

"the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has yet to endorse a single solution that will keep birds out of the path of an oncoming aircraft."

Um, shoot them?

Re:Shoot them

[Logical Zebra]

I knew those sidewinder missiles I purchased for my Boeing 747 were going to come in handy.

Re:Shoot them

[Groo Wanderer]

By 'them', do you mean the planes or the birds?

              -Charlie

Re:Shoot them

[nomorecwrd]

Actually is common practice in many airports to shoot blanks, to scare birds away.

Re:Shoot them

[sznupi]

Especially since, from what I hear, areas around many airports have been essentially turned into wetlands.

No wonder flocks of birds like the place...

Re:Shoot them

[Ethanol-fueled]

One existing solution is having a mechanical dummy gun fire blank rounds at certain intervals. Looks like we'll have to wait for the real thing...unless you're saying that all of those unemployed Elmer Fudds in the south could be put to better use ;)

Re:Shoot them

[ls671]

Hmm.. season open for uncle Jimbo ?

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimbo_Kern

Re:Shoot them

[Wrath0fb0b]

Especially since, from what I hear, areas around many airports have been essentially turned into wetlands.

(1) Flight 1549 was 5 miles from the airport at the time of the bird strike, meaning that they have to patrol a huge area (especially hard in the NYC metro area) to get rid of all the nesting sites there.

(2) The Canada (blame Canada!) geese that were ingested into the engine were just passing through the area on their migration route. So any sort of habitat destruction on the ground would have zero effect on them anyway. Good luck changing their migration routes too.

So, at least in this instance, there was basically nothing you could do about it except have trained pilots well-versed in emergency procedures. In fact, as a general matter, I think it's silly to invest in technology/training/whatever that solves an individual problem when you can invest in other measures that will accrue benefits across a wide variety of (perhaps unexpected) problems.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing how it's almost time to leave work, and I've got about 5 minutes to burn, let me summarize all the comments/ideas into 1.

Paint the plane gray like a shark, attaching lasers that shoot the birds, with a giant cow catcher as a windshield, with a giant windmill attached to the top, and have a beowolf cluster of Dick Cheney's be the pilots for all of them.

Now there's a solid solution we can try, and 1 of them is bound to end in success.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded down, because everyone knows what you're talking about, jackass.

Re:Shoot them

[rhathar]

They're coming right for us!

Re:Shoot them

[Phasma Felis]

Capital idea! We'll just shoot every single bird that takes to the air within a ten-mile radius of every airport in the world. It should only take about 100 million professional snipers on 24/7 duty.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear, hear.

Sooner and later, evolution will kick in and the birds will start to avoid the airplanes.

Right?

Re:Shoot them

[Stargoat]

Yeah. I have a solution. Stargoat, a Remington 870, and a box of shells.

Re:Shoot them

[idontgno]

(2) The Canada (blame Canada!) geese that were ingested into the engine were just passing through the area on their migration route. So any sort of habitat destruction on the ground would have zero effect on them anyway. Good luck changing their migration routes too.

So, these geese were illegal immigrants, crossing our sovereign national border without permission, invitation, or documentation, stealing food from decent hard-working American duck flocks, fouling American land and water with their unregulated duckish emissions, and ultimately causing mayhem and near-total disaster on American transportation systems.

We definitely need a better security fence. I hope our Homeland Security Department jumps on this.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

But will Linux run it in Soviet Russia?

Re:Shoot them

[GigG]

Many pilots would vote FAA.

Re:Shoot them

[ls671]

I for one did not know before today that his last name was Kern and some other details about uncle Jimbo but I forgot everybody else on /. knew absolutely everything about him.
 

Re:Shoot them

[snowraver1]

I hope so too. Once they get to Canada they shack up on our golf courses and shit on the greens. We hate the geese as much as you.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

The copilots should be a beowulf cluster of Natalie Portmans covered in hot grits.

Re:Shoot them

[derGoldstein]

I wasn't aware of this (though it makes sense). I do, however, know that there was a trial to place megaphone-like cones which are pulsed to create shockwaves near runways. Last I heard this was an expensive setup though, and I don't know how effective the trial was.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my friekin' god. On my first pass I thought you wrote "to shoot blacks ."

Re:Shoot them

[The Standard Deviant]

. . .that's nothing compared to current UK government plans!

Re:Shoot them

[cellurl]

We always look for some hitech solution in aviation.

At Dulles Airport in DC, they shoot off a carbide cannon a few minutes prior to takeoff.

Its a really loud bang that no-bird enjoys!.

Re:Shoot them

[sznupi]

I wasn't talking about 1549, just general idiocy of establishing "Federally protected wetlands" in drainage basins for the airfield itself, for example.

Like in case of Detroit Metro Airport's runway 9R-27L, almost directly across Middlebelt Rd. from a 650m x 415m wetland/flood basin. Notice all the vegetation.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Detroit+Metro+Airport+runway+9R-27L&sll=37.579413,-95.712891&sspn=33.830346,56.162109&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=42.202423,-83.326921&spn=0.015546,0.027423&t=k&z=15
Scroll north to see more wetlands. Quoting one buddy: Catch a pic at the right time of day, to be determined by the frickin' birds, and there's hundreds/thousands of waterfowl on that thing or browsing the surrounding fields...some of which are directly under the flight path.
This is the same airport that claims it has no deer within the fence, so therefore no danger of deer on the runway, but drive by the sound abatement berms on the south end early some morning and you'll see herds of them at the edge of the woods. There's a 12+ foot fence the airport managers say keeps 'em out, but no one bothered to tell the deer that.

Or look at main Cyprus airfield
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=34.879876,33.620825&spn=0.050133,0.061197&t=h&z=14
just to the north-west was a large salt lake and all around were about half-a-dozen smaller salt lakes. These mostly dry up in summer (except for a couple of small ones) but are in various degrees of wetness during the winter, when they are the predilected home for thousands of wading birds, from the size of a moorhen up to swans and flamingos. They are also internationally recognised and protected nature reserves. It is a common sight in winter to see flocks of hundreds of flamingos transiting between the lakes, right across the flight paths of the aircraft and they aren't the size of a sparrow, either. Aircraft are often sitting on the end of the runway waiting for clearance for takeoff while "hostile" birds bugger off. Bird strikes are common in winter with perhaps 2 or 3/year requiring aircraft to return after takeoff either because of engine failure (rare), Pitot tubes spearing birds, cockpit glass cracked, control surfaces damaged, flaps unable to close etc. So far, no major accidents have occurred but it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
The white areas are dried salt lakes and the greenish-grey and blue-green areas are wet ones. As you can see, the runway has lakes a few metres from it, on either side!

Re:Shoot them

[derGoldstein]

And then serve the shot birds as meals in the aircraft. It's like two birds with one, er, shot!

Re:Shoot them

[icebike]

So, at least in this instance, there was basically nothing you could do about it except have trained pilots well-versed in emergency procedures.

I think the story is focused on changing the idea that there is basically nothing you can do.

The search for deterrent measures should not be limited to ground based systems.

We should not have to forever live with engine technology that can't handle that which occurs naturally in its normal operating environment.

We should not have to de-bird large areas just to handle air traffic.

The focus is to manage the problem so that it does not require every pilot execute emergency procedures on a daily basis.

Re:Shoot them

[derGoldstein]

Well no one said it would be easy.
Also, think of the economy: Can you imagine how many jobs (for snipers) this will create? It is a capital idea!

Re:Shoot them

[hurfy]

That might be quicker to implement than my idea of developing flying cats. Especially if i have to have the flying dogs already created to get the flying cats out of the airspace.....

Re:Shoot them

[geobeck]

I worked on an airport, years ago. At various places around the graded area, we had propane-powered noisemakers that would let off a gunshot-like sound every few minutes. Unfortunately, the birds became accustomed to the sound. The seagulls would still scatter, but only for half a minute. The ravens would merely flutter their feathers and continue doing what they were doing.

Other bird hazard tools included a starter pistol, a pickup truck (to scare them a little more directly), and a rifle.

Then again, this was a very small airport, so the more direct measures were only needed on the occasion that a plane was actually taking off or landing. And, of course, these measures would not have done anything for the Hudson incident, which happened far from the airport.

Re:Shoot them

[Achromatic1978]

Any animal that pisses off golfers is a species that ought to be treasured and protected.

Re:Shoot them

[EdIII]

By 'them', do you mean the planes or the birds?

That's a very good question.

If he's a PETA supporter I would think it would be the planes and he would support anti-aircraft guns to protect migration routes and enforce a 1 mile dynamic no-fly zone.

If he's a member of the NRA, I would think it would be the birds and he would support automated gun turrets on every plane.

I like to think outside of the box though, I say arm the birds.

Re:Shoot them

[samexner]

Neither! The pilot. Replace him with a better one that can avoid flocks of birds.

Re:Shoot them

[The Archon V2.0]

I like to think outside of the box though, I say arm the birds.

Good God, man. Have you already forgotten the lessons of Hitchcock? Tippi Hedren barely made it through when those feathery sons of bitches were engaging in hand-to-ha... er... hand-to-wing combat. Arm them and we're all doomed!

Re:Shoot them

[luigi517]

You can't exactly just dodge a flock of birds in a 747

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I fly a plane, I like to open the window, right before take off, and yell, "Hey birds, get out of here!". Sometimes I have to shake my fist at the surlier birds.

It's always worked. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best answer.

Re:Shoot them

[Firethorn]

My base does actually use the 12 gauge option, if the other measures work.

They've found that shooting a few birds for real renews the effectiveness of the pure sound shots.

Other options include making the airport not as attractive to birds as other areas outside the flight path. Then you hunt the other areas sufficiently that they don't fill up habitat wise, but not so much you scare the birds away - a brief but intense hunting season, basically.

Re:Shoot them

[Kral_Blbec]

but if they were armed then they couldnt fly. try it yourself. wave your own really fast.

Re:Shoot them

[Kral_Blbec]

Any animal that pisses on golfers is a species that ought to be treasured and protected.

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:Shoot them

[beav007]

You're obviously not trying hard enough...

Re:Shoot them

[jd]

Guns are old-hat. Modern warfare is done with suicide bombers. Pack birdseed and fish with RDX.

Re:Shoot them

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding point 2, the facts seem to be at variance with your statement;

A recent article shows you can, and in fact have changed migratory habits, in this case to none!

  http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/06/us_airways200906

"The agencies captured breeding pairs of an endangered but supersize subspecies known as the giant Canada goose, and by clipping their wings forced them to settle permanently into authorized nesting grounds along the Eastern Seaboard and elsewhere in the United States. The offspring of these clipped-wing geese imprinted to the new locations, and, having lost the collective memory of migration, became full-time resident populations.'

It seems they were not illegal immigrants!

Re:Shoot them

[mjwx]

We definitely need a better security fence.

Yes, a fence in the sky.

I for a long time said that Canada need to follow the example of their US brethren and build a fence on their southern border to prevent the undesirables from moving north.

Re:Shoot them

[Joce640k]

A Phalanx system would be more efficient.

Re:Shoot them

[michaelhood]

this is a fallacy; no one would voluntarily emigrate to Canada.

Re:Shoot them

[Kreigaffe]

Lot of 'em never get up to canada, they decide to stop short and shack up on OUR golf courses.
I don't golf, though, so old guys slipping on goose shit and bending their thousand dollar clubs just makes me laugh. :D

Re:Shoot them

[dudpixel]

I've got it!! Just install radar devices on all birds...

Re:Shoot them

[a dark blue]

yeah, arm swallows with coconuts

Re:Shoot them

[kahless62003]

unregulated gooseish emissions

TFTFY

Re:Shoot them

[somersault]

Other options include making the airport not as attractive to birds as other areas outside the flight path

Easy - require that they take their shoes off and go through millimetre wave scanners before they're allowed anywhere near the planes.

Re:Shoot them

[Chiindi]

Have faith! . The FAA is already working on installing transponders and TCAS systems on the birds.

Re:Shoot them

[techess]

I've heard that shooting blanks will indeed keep storks away. It is good to know that it works on other birds.

Re:Shoot them

[BigBlueOx]

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Also, any thoughts on how much said sniping job would pay?

Re:Shoot them

[c64cryptoboy]

What about the aircraft mounted pain guns? http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/09/19/202227.shtml

Re:Shoot them

[default luser]

Just shoot them all so we get rid of all the noise pollution! Damn jumbo jets keep me up at night, and damn birds wake me up in the morning!

Hey Charlie, where have you been lately? The Inq has been boring without you.

Re:Shoot them

[DirkGently]

I just don't see how anyone could profit from this.

Good luck

[cheezitman2001]

I think it's for the birds.

Re:Good luck

[T Murphy]

Put them through the same security checkpoints and FAA regulations that we have to go through to fly and I think they won't bother much anymore. No sane creature would put up with that more than a couple times a year.

Re:Good luck

[mrmeval]

Give a poor boy 20 dollars a bird and let him keep any worth keeping. You won't have a bird problem.

I know one person that can do it

[C_Kode]

Dick Cheney will shoot them all in the face. :)

Re:I know one person that can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means we will need Beowulf cluster of Dick Cheneys! Imagine that!

Wait... oh my god!

Re:I know one person that can do it

[mcgrew]

Oh god, now I'll have nightmares tonight

Re:I know one person that can do it

[JCSoRocks]

I'm not so sure. Now if we needed a plane full of RIAA lawyers dealt with he's the man to send in. If you're looking to get birds killed you'd have better luck with a slingshots and a bunch of bored teenagers than you would Dick Cheney.

Re:I know one person that can do it

[vlm]

Now if we needed a plane full of RIAA lawyers dealt with he's the man to send in

Close, very close. The plan is to fly a plane full of lawyers in formation in front of civilian passengers to take out the birds. I'd almost say, like a human shield, however, the lead plane is full of lawyers...

Re:I know one person that can do it

[tsa]

Donald Rumsfeld can do it.

Re:I know one person that can do it

[Locke2005]

Only if they have law degrees. Gotta like that man; shoots lawyers and gets away with it AND he is in favor of gay marriage! Although with his enthusiasm for torture, you gotta wonder what sort of antics go on privately in his bedroom...

Re:I know one person that can do it

[Cheney]

Sir, that's offensive. I obviously wasn't shooting at the damn birds.

Re:I know one person that can do it

[superdave80]

The guy that couldn't tell his friend from a bird? I'm not sure if he'd hit the birds or the pilots with that poor vision.

Re:I know one person that can do it

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to re-think this one, because he will most likely aim at the birds, but somehow shoot the pilot in the face. :o)

Re:I know one person that can do it

[mpe]

The plan is to fly a plane full of lawyers in formation in front of civilian passengers to take out the birds. I'd almost say, like a human shield, however, the lead plane is full of lawyers...

Wouldn't you also need a supply of lawyers who are also pilots though :)

Re:I know one person that can do it

[Hurricane78]

Not it the time is short enough, so it does not matter anyway. ^^

Or just add a remote control.

why not kill two birds with one stone

[user317]

and build some windmills to generate electricity. i thought those take care of birds pretty handedly. or is it just the endangered ones?

Re:why not kill two birds with one stone

[derGoldstein]

It's enough to stretch wire from high poles to deter birds from flying under them, and this is often used around construction sites.

However the problem here is height, and the fact the aircraft might "mind" objects being in their flight path...

From what I can recall from a documentary I saw on this topic, different breeds of cats (wild cats) are allowed around some airports to hunt birds. I can't find any link relating to this though...

I did, however, manage to find at least one mention of "mock hunters", like this one, which are flown around an airport to make real birds think that the place is full of predatory birds.

Re:why not kill two birds with one stone

[liquidsin]

we're past that; we're looking for a more efficient use of stones. our original target was a 5:1 bird/stone ratio, but right now 3:1 is looking more feasible; at 2:1 you have to factor in the weight of a half-flock of rocks added to your cargo.

Re:why not kill two birds with one stone

[derGoldstein]

at 2:1 you have to factor in the weight of a half-flock of rocks added to your cargo.

Obviously your stones are too big.

Re:why not kill two birds with one stone

[icebike]

Yup. I've never seen a bird fly under a power line.

Not.

Re:why not kill two birds with one stone

[zlogic]

Great, these mock hunters will damage planes instead of real birds :-)

Obviously

[Random2]

we need to use flamethrowers.

Re:Obviously

[deaddowney]

No the answer we were looking for was: "We need some mothafuckin' snakes on these mothafuckin' planes"

Re:Obviously

[timbck2]

I was waiting for this. Bravo!

Birds are smart

[Groo Wanderer]

Most people don't realize this, but birds are very smart. They learn very quickly after getting hit by an airplane or being sucked into an engine, they NEVER do it a second time. People are usually not that smart, but birds learn quickly.

            -Charlie

Re:Birds are smart

[drsmithy]

People are usually not that smart, but birds learn quickly.

Rubbish. Show me one person who has been hit by an airplane or sucked into an engine more than once.

Re:Birds are smart

[geekoid]

You know someone that's been sucked into a Jumbo Jet intake more then once?

You might want to tell Clark we are on to him.

Re:Birds are smart

[MadnessASAP]

How many people do you know of that get struck by a plane/sucked into an engine do it a second time?

Re:Birds are smart

[samson13]

My little brother's work has a no fly zone over it. Even the birds don't fly over a second time....

He showed me a photo of some wings with some carbon between them.

Not a solution for airports cause apparently they can do that to pilots as well (hence the NOTAM restricted area). >20kW of microwave energy and a very directional antenna could be an amusing toy. I wonder what the bit error rate is from cooking a bird?

Paint the planes...

[TBoon]

...to look like predator birds. (Laser equipped shark-paintings optional if primarily flying over water...)

Re:Paint the planes...

[Sulphur]

...to look like predator birds. (Laser equipped shark-paintings optional if primarily flying over water...)

That should scare the flying fish back down (if they are at excessive altitude).

It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

How about cow catchers?

Re:It's simple

[icebike]

How about cow catchers?

I know that was supposed to be funny, but why not have a deflector that can be deployed in front of the engine For an instant, In an instant, and then retract.

Sure it blanks the engine, but it only needs to be there for a couple seconds.

This might be easier to do on tail-mounted engines, like 727's because the deflector (shaped like an air-brake) could deploy from the side of the aircraft.

But a pole protruding forward from the axis of engine could deploy near instantaneous deflectors
which retract just as quickly to bounce birds around the intake.

Re:It's simple

[actionbastard]

A screen of very sharp blades, in an orthogonal pattern, could be put over the engine inlet so that when a bird hits it, it will be chopped into smaller pieces that will make it easier for the engine to ingest (digest). Composed of the right material and with the proper cross-section, it would have minimal effect on airflow.

Re:It's simple

[jshackney]

I know that was supposed to be funny, but why not have a deflector that can be deployed in front of the engine For an instant, In an instant, and then retract. Sure it blanks the engine, but it only needs to be there for a couple seconds.

The compressor stalls (loud noise and flames coming out of the engine) would scare the bejeezus out of anyone near that engine. The fire goes out in a jet engine pretty quick when you take any of the three magical ingredients out of the recipe.

However, a better design does exist and it's not entirely far off from what you suggest. Turboprops of the PT-6 variety (the only type with which I'm familiar) are typically mounted (and operate) in such a way that an inertial separator could stave off engine shutdown due to ingestion of large amounts of foreign material. With the inertial separator deployed air flows around a corner of such a radius that something more massive (such as ice--thus the intent of the device) cannot make the turn and is ejected aft of engine. The drawback of such a device is that it causes power loss and a rise in operating temperature.

To do something like this with a large turbojet/fan engine would require a non-trivial amount of engineering to relocate intakes asymmetrically from the thrustline of the engine(s) thus allowing debris to be ejected without damaging the engine. Not a huge problem. It just adds slightly more complexity and expense and until we're encountering birds more than we encounter ice, things aren't likely to change.

Re:It's simple

[jd]

It sounds a good idea and very practical. You wouldn't need anything protruding from the aircraft, since most jet engines have bypasses - you can use the frame for that.

Re:It's simple

[FlyingGuy]

I like your idea. The issues come into play when you start screwing around with air flow into the engine. I am not sure you could treat it like a turboprop engine. Turbo props use 100% of the air they intake for combustion or whatever bleed air takes their are whereas in a large turbo-fan bypass ratios are starting to hit 11 to 1 and over, interrupting air flow into the engine could give a drastic and very sudden reduction in thrust.

A lot of TurboProp engines use centrifugal rather then axial compressors or a combination of both making air intake much less critical.

Re:It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Still, a sudden, momentary, reduction in thrust would probably be preferable to the alternative, permanent, 100% reduction in thrust caused by blending a goose.

Props.

[LWATCDR]

Just go back to Prop driven aircraft. The props will take care of the.
Actually I fear that sort of just killing every bird that refuses to leave the area around the airport that there isn't a total solution.

Re:Props.

[confused one]

just breaks off a blade. plane still falls out of sky.

Re:Props.

[LWATCDR]

That would be one big bird. Props tend to be a lot more sturdy than turbine blades.

Fricken Laser Beams!!!

[Matheus]

I'd rather the birds were cooked outside the engine than in.

USAF

[mcgrew]

When I was stationed in Dover in the early '70s, a C-5A came in while I was working on the flightline with its windhield broken, a big bloody hole in it. It had hit a pretty large bird, IIRC a big duck, which decapitated the co-pilot. Bird strikes have been aviation's bane since there was such a thing as aviation.

Re:USAF

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think that the Montgolfier Brothers or their followers had much trouble with birds.

Re:USAF

[bitt3n]

Bird strikes have been aviation's bane since there was such a thing as aviation.

I think the birds would claim that such strikes have been aviation's bane for only the past 100 years or so.

Re:USAF

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hate to be killed by a duck that took my head off. Of all the stupid ways to die, that's towards the top of the list.

Re:USAF

[jd]

Duck? Nothing! I wanna see a plane collide with a Haast's Eagle or a Argentavis magnificens! (But it may take a while for genetic engineering to bring them back.)

Bet you anything they'd do a damn sight more damage!

Re:USAF

[jd]

Given this nasty bastard hunted by means of bird strikes, I think there are a few birds in New Zealand who would disagree.

Re:USAF

[jafac]

I imagine that aviation has been the bane of birds since there's been such a thing as aviation.

Sharks

[multipartmixed]

With lasers on their heads.

Best. Plan. Ever.

Re:Sharks

[newcastlejon]

With jet engines up their arses, I presume?

Re:Sharks

[Anonymous Coward]

This still gets modded funny?? Is anyone else over the whole "sharks with lasers" thing?

Re:Sharks

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the main problem is getting them to the birds.
Fortunately, there is a solution.

Re:Sharks

[Aehgts]

Lasers make everything better!

Cost factor

[HikingStick]

Regardless of how much money they can throw at a technical solution, nothing will be as cost effective as paying a bunch of guys in blaze orange vests to shoot at birds near the airports.

"What'd ya do today, Jake?"

"Shot at pigeons."

"Really? I thought the range was only open on weekends."

"Not them pigeons. I got me a job with the airport. I'm shootin' real pigeons, plus geese and anything else with wings. I just wish that darn airport were closer to Sesame Street. I've always hated that Big Bird..."

Re:Cost factor

[Phasma Felis]

Flight 1549 hit the geese five miles from the runway, several thousand feet up. Your hunters must have some pretty impressive shotguns.

Re:Cost factor

[HikingStick]

Conceded. Strike "shotguns". Replace with "gauss rifles".

Re:Cost factor

[Eil]

Regardless of how much money they can throw at a technical solution, nothing will be as cost effective as paying a bunch of guys in blaze orange vests to shoot at birds near the airports.

As someone who has lived in the midwest, I can tell you those guys in orange vests have a hard enough time recognizing the difference between animals with two legs and four, I wouldn't count on them to be able to tell the difference between birds that flap their wings and those that don't.

Re:Cost factor

[EdIII]

Your hunters must have some pretty impressive shotguns.

Sounds to me like a good reason to make them pretty impressive shotguns.

Re:Cost factor

[shermo]

Indeed, but would they even requirement payment?

Re:Cost factor

[jd]

Replace the gunpowder in the cartridge with RDX, hollow out the centre of the bullet and add a rocket motor. All set.

Re:Cost factor

[mpe]

Flight 1549 hit the geese five miles from the runway, several thousand feet up.

One thing to remember is that bird strikes can happen at any altitude. Just because humans cannot breath above 10,000 feet does not mean that birds can't.

Re:Cost factor

[HikingStick]

Throw in a few bratwurst and a keg (at the end of every shift, of course), and I'll bet they'd have a three year waiting period for someone to have a turn.

Re:Cost factor

[HikingStick]

Just a note of condolence. As someone else who lives in the midwestern United States, I didn't take your message to be a troll, but rather something humorous. I know many responsible hunters, but have heard way too many stories about the irresponsible (and inibriated) ones.

Re:Cost factor

[captainpanic]

Yep, good idea. Small balls of lead flying around at supersonic speeds never hurt an airplane!

How long until a bullet comes down and punctures a fuel tank?

Re:Cost factor

[LoRdTAW]

I had a friend in grade school who's uncle was one of those guys. He and a small crew used to drive around JFK international with shot guns and kill tons of seagulls. Apparently one of the animal rights groups made a stink about it and the practice was stopped. Something about threatening the gull population which never appeared to be a problem. I don't know if they still do it but JFK is right on Jamaica Bay so its real good seagull territory.

If everything else failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a clown on each wing

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[nomorecwrd]

I'm really getting tired of this...

I know that /. is all about free speech, and no post is deleted... but come on, isn't there a way for at least mod this posts -1 offtopic by default?

Turrets!

[P2PDaemon]

C'mon, no one's mentioned automatic turrets above every engine? I would pay money to have a window seat if turrets were installed...

Re:Turrets!

[guruevi]

I wouldn't want a window seat if one of those birds gets through and hits the turret, bending it towards the window.

Re:Turrets!

[Chabo]

Goose is sappin' mah sentry!

Re:Turrets!

[Krneki]

Even better, offer remote control to passengers for a premium price.

Re:Turrets!

[HaloZero]

Yes, but then you include metal rounds as a class of objects that likely will be SUCKED INTO THE ENGINE. If my options for aspirating something are a bird versus a bullet, I think the plane would fair better ingesting a bird. Not to mention the hazard of turning one falling (suckable) objects into many falling (suckable) objects.

Re:Turrets!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You have been watching the escape from Death Star in Star Wars: Episode 4 too much.

Re:Turrets!

[frosty_tsm]

Not to mention the hazard of turning one falling (suckable) objects into many falling (suckable) objects.

Good point, except that an engine survives a bird hit by chopping it up. Breaking one bird into many pieces makes that task easier.

Re:Turrets!

[Pinckney]

Yes, but then you include metal rounds as a class of objects that likely will be SUCKED INTO THE ENGINE. If my options for aspirating something are a bird versus a bullet, I think the plane would fair better ingesting a bird. Not to mention the hazard of turning one falling (suckable) objects into many falling (suckable) objects.

The larger problem would be firing thousands of rounds into inhabited areas around airports. That will kill somebody fairly quickly. The bullet isn't going to be sucked into the engine (it's moving too damn fast), short of some highly un-civilian maneuvers (A F-11 pilot managed to shoot himself down back in 1956!). The brass could be sucked in, but as long as it is ejected behind the mouth of the engine, it will fall clear just fine.

Re:Turrets!

[geekoid]

What do you use to pay for a window seat now?

Re:Turrets!

[teac77]

Make that into an iPhone app and I'll buy it. ^^

Re:Turrets!

[jd]

I wouldn't want a seat anywhere near the plane if the bird swerves between the engine and the fuselage.

Re:Turrets!

[rdnetto]

Bullets are metallic (usually). Just just a magnetic alloy and stick a magnet near the jets to make sure that none go in. Of course, you'd have to find a way to do it without interfering with the engine, but is shouldn't be too difficult...

Re:Turrets!

[rdnetto]

...or you could just design bullets that are soft enough to disintegrate on contact, so that they wouldn't be a problem for the engines.

Fly Around Them

[anonicon]

Are flocks too small to pick up on the plane's radar? If not, fly around them.

Re:Fly Around Them

[vivek7006]

"fly around them"

Why not fly with them? If you cant beat them, then join them :)

Re:Fly Around Them

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not let them fly the plane? They have thousands of hours experience flying.

Re:Fly Around Them

[HaloZero]

Generally, yes, the flocks are difficult to pick up on radar, due to the small cross-section, and generally squishy nature of birds. The speed of an aircraft is also an issue - moving at 600mph (~880 feet per second) - means the flock (given radar / VFR issues) will probably already be upon you even before you have a chance to react. Even if you did have time to react, an Airbus A320 doesn't exactly (safely) turn on a dime.

Re:Fly Around Them

[Anonymous Coward]

I call baloney.

I've seen Synthetic Aperture Radar pictures that can show where a single person walked by where the grass had been pressed down. Spotting anything that's not in ground clutter ought to be a piece of cake.

Now in a maneuverability contest between the two, yes, the plane loses. It would be very difficult to protect against a flock of birds changing course at the last minute and hitting the plane.

Re:Fly Around Them

[Phasma Felis]

Yeah, it turns out meat doesn't show up on radar very well.

Clearly we need robot birds.

Re:Fly Around Them

[Anonymous Coward]

That would waste too much fuel. Instead we should build a network of tunnels and underwater tubes for the planes to fly though like subways.

Re:Fly Around Them

[joggle]

Just to pick a nick, that jet was not going anywhere near 600 mph during climb just 5 miles downrange from the airport. Usually once a jet reaches that speed they're at cruising altitude above the altitude at which almost any bird ever flies. Another nick is they usually cruise much closer to 500 mph, not 600 mph (the latter being about 91% of the speed of sound at cruising altitude, way too fast for any commercial airliner currently flying).

Still, even at the speed it was probably traveling at (perhaps 200-250 mph) it still would be difficult if not impossible to see the birds quickly enough to avoid them.

Re:Fly Around Them

[Clanked]

However you forget that most air radars (assuming they have more than just a weather radar to begin with) are designed to ignore slow moving objects (read birds) because it clutter the scope to the point of being useless.

Re:Fly Around Them

[mevets]

But then the terrorbirds win. Better to crash land in the sea than make room for those stinkin geese...

Re:Fly Around Them

[inviolet]

Are flocks too small to pick up on the plane's radar? If not, fly around them.

Very very very few commercial aircraft carry their own radars.

And the approach radar, usually located at the airport, will probably be tuned to ignore bird flocks.

Re:Fly Around Them

[HaloZero]

Counter-nits:

US Airways Flight 1549 is recorded as an Airbus A320-214. The crusing speed of an A320 is Mach 0.78. Mach 0.78 is 593.7415 miles per hour, which is closer to 600 than 500, I believe. In holding with being a complete bastard, 91% of Mach 1 is 692.698416 miles per hour, fully 98.95 miles per hour more than your claim. (The speed of sound being 761.207051 miles per hour, for reference.)

You are correct about the rate-of-climb at the time of incident, though - it was grossly less than the cruse speed.

Also, nits - not nicks - are often picked, unless you're creating a new account.

Re:Fly Around Them

[joggle]

The speed of sound changes with pressure and temperature, unless you consider cruising altitude sea level. The speed of sound at FL35 is 660 mph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound). 600 mph / 660 mph = 0.909. 660 mph * 0.78 = 514.8 mph (closer to 500 mph than 600 mph as I claimed). Happy now?

I was trained in aerospace engineering, not English, although in this case I blame dyslexia :P.

I have an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats... just move all the stray cats to the airport. I'm sure there are plenty to go around.

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. Parent is straddling the line between -1 troll and +1 funny.

Not very funny, but not a very good troll, either. Weird.

Good luck with that

[jayhawk88]

The birds have been flying for longer than humans have been on this Earth, and they're better at it than we'll ever be. You might just as well start work on the matter transporters.

Re:Good luck with that

[icebike]

> and they're better at it than we'll ever be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71

Re:Good luck with that

[geekoid]

Yeah, they ahve wings, for starters.

I'm not sure what metric you are using to determine 'better'.

Re:Good luck with that

[Jimbob The Mighty]

Oh sweet FSM! I just imagined what a bird-strike with matter transporters would look like.

Re:Good luck with that

[427_ci_505]

Slashdot is sadly missing the +1 Awesome mod.

Solution for European swallows...

[swanzilla]

...simply attach coconuts to them. African swallow pose more of a challenge.

Scarecrows

[EvilToiletPaper]

How about two giant aerodynamic scarecrows on each wing?

Apparently ..

[SlashDev]

... these are Kamikaze birds; maybe we should try education?

Ain't gonna happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell I have seen people try everything from chile spray to Border Collies and they can't keep geese off a golf course either. Nothing short of eradication will keep them away from airports and we don't want that.

Re:Ain't gonna happen

[Red Flayer]

See, here's the thing about controlling geese populations at public parks, golf courses, etc.

In theory, if you have border collies chase them around when they're deciding if that's the place for them to build their summer nests, then they'll go elsewhere, and you'll be pretty much unbothered the rest of the summer. In practice, they'll come anyway to feed when that's the only place with green grass in the dry parts of summer.

But really, you're asking for a larger problem.

You have the geese.
Then you bring in the border collies to get rid of the geese.
Then you've got to bring in bears to get rid of the collies.

We all know how that turns out -- bears hibernate, so they won't freeze during the winter, so now you've got a bear infestation on your hands.

Since the only thing known to be so irritating to bears as to drive them off is when there's goose shit everywhere, you'll need to bring in some geese to get rid of the bears, which leaves you back where you started.

Seriously, though... if you want to get rid of geese, bring in coyotes or wolves. Sure, Mrs. Fuddlydudd now has to worry that her precious Snookums might get eaten... but that's a small price to pay for me to be able to play 18 holes without having to clean goose shit out of my spikes. And as for kids in the neighborhood... at least they'll get exercise if they need to run from a wolfpack now and again. Good for youth fitness, I say.

Falcons

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Brazil, they are training falcons to scare birds away from airport zones.

Re:Falcons

[sherpajohn]

We use falcons up here in Canada as well.

http://www.gtaa.com/en/news/torontopearson_today/details/7499a896-f358-436e-b3f4-f9fbc69bccb9

Re:Falcons

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Funny, here in poor Central Europe, we also use trained falcons (flash required, lame edit, lame sound, no translation, but at least some nice illustrative shots :-)). I guess they are even more underpaid than us. Perhaps the Americans could use F-16s?

Re:Falcons

[Ironica]

Here in Brazil, they are training falcons to scare birds away from airport zones.

So the solution to the bird problem is... more birds?

Re:Falcons

[derGoldstein]

Holland has taken it even further.

(note: I double-posted this link in this thread, I know... But I didn't see this comment until I submitted the previous one. Have mercy! Don't mod me redundant!)

Re:Falcons

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yes, but these birds are trained and controlled, they don't randomly bump into planes.

Re:Falcons

[changedx]

No wonder the Canadian geese are migrating to U.S. airports!

high powered water jets

[RiotXIX]

or fans that blow them out of the way.
or a barrier around the engine inflow.

I bet there is a solution, just no one gives a fuck to implement it until a few more planes go down, this time in the city.

Seriously some people with a lot of money need to get their shit together.

Re:high powered water jets

[RayMarron]

> a barrier around the engine inflow

That's the first thing that popped into my head. Big, diamond-grate cones over the front of the engines (a flat one would probably just get crammed in there with the bird when it hit).

Re:high powered water jets

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"Seriously some people with a lot of money need to get their shit together."

I am sure that Los Angeles has already had a sewage system implemented quite a long time ago.

Re:high powered water jets

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that if said cone is solid, it will restrict virtually all of the air being pulled into the engine. If it's a mesh or spoke-based, it'll just slice the bird into pieces, which then get sucked into the engine.

Re:high powered water jets

[RayMarron]

little pieces should be easier to "digest", no?

Re:high powered water jets

[Mydnight]

As soon as you create a cone like that, you are merely going to suck Chicken (or Goose, or Duck, or whatever else) Mcnuggets into the engines.

Even better:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mega Shark!

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this post will offend a lot of people, but it gave me a pretty good laugh (I'm a Linux-only guy). It reminded me more of a Comedy Central Roast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy_Central_Roast), than a serious attack on Linux.

Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[2obvious4u]

The planes velocity is too fast to move birds out of the flight path of planes. What needs to happen is make the planes capable of hitting a Canadian goose at 400 mph...

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a mesh cone over the intakes.
Not too hard to install a mesh with holes too small for a goose but big enough for air - and enough structural integrity that hitting a few things doesn't hurt it.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[T Murphy]

Canada goose. A Canadian goose simply happens to come from Canada. A Canada goose is of a specific species.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[derGoldstein]

Nah... Just mount some fan grills.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Not too hard to install a mesh with holes too small for a goose but big enough for air - and enough structural integrity that hitting a few things doesn't hurt it

Now, increase the structural integrity of the geese so they don't merely get diced as they hit this mesh, but instead just bounce off.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[BenSchuarmer]

I was thinking of something like that, but conical. That way it would deflect the bird, instead taking the full force from the impact.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[SimonInOz]

I read that as "capable of hitting a Canadian moose at 400 mph..." and I thought - that thing'll never fly

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[Jimbob The Mighty]

Unless I'm mistaken, planes are already capable of hitting them. What needs to happen is to design a plane that can hit them with zero ill effects. Anybody like to round up the team that designed the 1985 Volvo 240GL and entice them to try their hands at Aeronautic Engineering?

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[virgil_disgr4ce]

The time is well nigh for a functioning deflector shield system!

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[R3d M3rcury]

Or, perhaps, make faster geese that can get out of the way.

There's a thought: We teach the geese to make jet airplanes.

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, they need to make the engines out of the same stuff they make the blackboxes out of. It's clearly indestructible!

Re:Inevitable, make sturdier planes...

[Anonymous Coward]

The planes velocity is too fast to move birds out of the flight path of planes. What needs to happen is make the planes capable of hitting a Canadian goose at 400 mph...

Insightful? I thought we already made planes perfectly capable of hitting a Canadian goose at 400 mph. It just so happens that the planes don't like it that much!

Star Wars Actually Works: +1, Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

Not China, Not CCCP ( now Russia) but birds are the REAL enemy.

They only look like birds. To paraphrase Philip K. Dick, some night the bird suits will fall off and they'll come crashing through your roof.

Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout

Warning signals

[T Murphy]

Maybe we should add a warning signal for the birds. Like a really loud noise.

Re:Warning signals

[Yacoby]

Maybe we should add a warning signal for the birds. Like a really loud noise.

They tried that with the concord but it didn't work, so they gave up on the idea.

Re:Warning signals

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Was that because of Concorde hitting the bird sooner than the bird could hear it coming?

Re:Warning signals

[Krneki]

Yeah, shame the Concord was traveling faster then sound. :)

Re:Warning signals

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should add a warning signal for the birds. Like a really loud noise.

They tried that with the concord but it didn't work, so they gave up on the idea.

Informative? Woosh?

Re:Warning signals

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should add a warning signal for the birds. Like a really loud noise.

How loud did you have in mind? Like loud as a jet engine maybe?

Re:Warning signals

[Eudial]

Problem is that birds learn. It's easy to make them run away from something, but if nothing bad happens to them, they'll eventually stop running and ignore it.

Also, jet engines already make a pretty loud and conspicuous noise.

Re:Warning signals

[Shadow-isoHunt]

So *that's* why you didn't hear the WHOOSH sound coming...

Re:Warning signals

[Anonymous Coward]

The people modding this 'Informative' rather than 'Funny' seem to be missing out on a bit here. That or I am. Hard to tell sometimes.

Re:Airbus

[vivek7006]

Please provide some reference.

Re:Airbus

[ryturner]

That is a very well written post. Unfortinately that is not what happened. But good job bashing Airbus.

"Bird Strikes"

[dethndrek]

"Bird Strike" sounds like a terrorist action and as such, all the FAA has to do is declare a "War on Birds" Based on similar actions by other governmental bodies in similar situations, I believe it will be only a matter of years before the birds give up and lay down their wings.

Re:"Bird Strikes"

[damburger]

Already been done. Chairman Mao once declared war on Sparrows (amongst other alleged pests) because sparrows were seen eating farmers seeds. Unfortunately they also ate locusts. Guess what happened next?

Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is known for ages: http://www.nethack.de/spoiler/32geno.txt

You find an aircraft. You find a scroll of genocide.
You read the scroll of genocide.
What monster do you want to genocide? [type the name] pilo^H^H^H^Hgoose.
Sent in some goose. Goose don't vote for Christmas. Happy Christmas, pilot!

Scare them away?

[iLogiK]

"There's no magic chemical you can spray or sound you can project that is going to scare the birds away."

If a giant, noisy flying metal box with flames on its sides doesn't scare the birds, what will?

Re:Scare them away?

[damburger]

How many giant, flying, metal shredding machines that move at near sonic speeds occur in nature? Birds have simply not evolved to be aware of such a threat. This is the same reason why you have to teach children to cross the road using special rotes; humans and other animals don't have an instinctual grasp of vehicles which are larger and faster than natural organisms.

duh

[n30na]

"The best bet right now is understanding bird behavior, although an intriguing old pilots' tale â" that radar can scatter birds â" may carry enough truth to ultimately offer a viable technical solution to a deadly problem. 'We need to find out, is that an urban legend or is there some truth to that?'

Isn't that what the mythbusters are for? c'mon guys.

Re:duh

[Locke2005]

Not an urban legend; I've personally seen flocks of migrating waterfowl fly over the BMEWS radar screens, and just start circling aimlessly. If their direction sense is water based, I can see why some high power microwave radiation might cause a problem.

As usual, SciFi

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

... is way ahead on this. (Hmm. Didn't know there was a Wookieepedia.)

A screen

[blockhouse]

Why can't aircraft engine manufacturers retrofit engines with a sturdy 2 inch mesh screen over the air intakes of their engines? That would keep birds from being sucked into the intake manifolds.

Re:A screen

[n30na]

They would probably cause issues with drag and engine performance at such speeds, though i'm just guessing.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't aircraft engine manufacturers retrofit engines with a sturdy 2 inch mesh screen over the air intakes of their engines?

You just invented a cheese grater for birds.
Now, instead of a ten pound bird going into the intake, you have ten pounds of bird parts going into the engine.

Re:A screen

[HaloZero]

Psh. Your puny mesh screen isn't going to stop the bird; it just means his death-by-CF6 sentence is commuted, only instead to being put through a fine mesh screen.

Re:A screen

[T Murphy]

If the mesh is too fine it will restrict airflow too much, and if its too coarse it will just shred the birds. They do have the giant fan blade that acts as a blender. If the minced bird is too much for the engine to handle then maybe the actual engine intake could be momentarily blocked so the former bird just gets routed around with the air that cools the engine. A sensor on the fan blade should be able to pick up any worrisome impacts to get the timing right.

I would be more concerned about the exposed wings and cockpit, since those don't have bird blenders to guard them. The cockpit window gets the turkey test, but I am not familiar with how the wings (especially the flaps) hold up. Perhaps I'm wrong and the engines are the whole problem, but in that case I don't know what those engineers are doing.

Re:A screen

[joshier]

That's what I thought, however I think the discussion goes further than just preventing collisions on engines, rather the wings, etc.

I presumed that there was no mesh in front of the engines purely because the high air resistance it would cause would be detrimental to the MPG's the aircraft would get. Whether this would outweigh the negatives is another matter indeed, but I'd like it discussed.

Re:A screen

[T Murphy]

Now, instead of a ten pound bird going into the intake, you have ten pounds of bird parts going into the engine.

What do you think happens to birds that hit the fan blades?

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

At 600 miles an hour, it wouldn't bounce the bird away, but it'd at least slice it into 2-inch squares. Those however, will still be sucked into the engine. Perhaps also with chunks of this mesh that break away when the bird hits it... which would be far worse than the fleshyness of the bird itself.

I can't see any feasable to way to 'bounce' a bird at that speed... no matter what it hits, it's either going through, or turning into a fine paste on top of.

Re:A screen

[joshier]

If you had a cone shaped mesh in front of the engines, wouldn't this deflect it enough from the blades?

Re:A screen

[Locke2005]

Is slicing and dicing birds into 2 inch square strips before they hit the turbine really that much of an improvement?

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

I misspoke. It was supposed to be 'into the engine' in both instances. In any case, the 10 lbs of diced bird going in will do the same damage as the full bird.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't aircraft engine manufacturers retrofit engines with a sturdy 2 inch mesh screen over the air intakes of their engines? That would keep birds from being sucked into the intake manifolds.

Then you have Bird Julienne hitting the engine, which is just as bad.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

It will also deflect airflow going into the engine. Plus, it would have to be immensely strong (read: heavy) to actually deflect a 600mph bird.

Re:A screen

[QuoteMstr]

What about using, instead of a grille, a cone in front of the engine? Think of a cow catcher, but much longer and more tapered: the idea is to deflect a bird away from the engine, not to actually stop the bird. If the cone is elongated enough, the tangential force imparted to the bird should be enough to deflect it without disintegrating it.

Human skin has a tensile strength of 7.5 MPa (i.e. 7.5 N/mm^2); birds should be similar. Skin can probably do better than this for brief periods. Consider a spherical, slightly elastic bird with negligible velocity that masses 9kg hitting an aircraft moving at 100 m/s (223 mph). If the bird accelerates to the speed of the aircraft in 0.1 seconds via a contact area of 10 square millimeters, then by the familiar F=MA equation, the bird experiences a force of 9,000 newtons distributed over those 10 square milliliters for a pressure of 900 MPa, and the bird explodes, sending bird-chunks into the engine.

However, if a bird hits the side of an 89 degree cone, then it doesn't need to accelerate to the speed of the aircraft, but can instead roll along the cone: in the instant the bird impacts the cone, it will need to accelerate in the forward direction by only cos(89 degrees), or 0.017 of the forward speed of the aircraft, or only 1.74 m/s, which in turn imparts a pressure of only 15.7 MPa: the bird is quite dead, but safely deflected away from the engine without disintegrating too badly.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times does it have to be said: You also deflect the air going into the intake. Remember, this shield is also in place at cruising speed of ~600mph.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

At those speeds, the mesh screen would probably be struck, obliterated and sucked into the engine along with the scattered bird. And if the mesh was made sturdy enough, it would likely significantly reduce the efficiency of the engine due to wind resistance. Engineers are not dumb... if this could be done, they would have done it already...

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

What is needed is not so much a screen, but rather a solid angled metal shield that projects about 1-2 feet in front of the air intake for the engine on take off and landing, and retracts at cruising altitude. If there is no way to get rid of the birds, and no way to make the engine stronger, then the only solution is a retractable barrier that will push the birds aside and keep them out.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... what?

Jet engines suck in anything within TWENTY FIVE FEET in a roughly 180 degree zone at the intake. Look at any aircraft ground safety info for details.

No bird deflected off a cone in front of the intake is going to be "safely deflected" away from anything. It'll just get sucked right in the second it rolls over the edge of the cone into the intake.

Re:A screen

[QuoteMstr]

It'll just get sucked right in the second it rolls over the edge of the cone into the intake.

So what if the cone continued up to the edge of the engine cowling?

Re:A screen

[QuoteMstr]

You also deflect the air going into the intake.

That's why the cone would be made of a grid of rigid wires that would let quite a lot of air through, of course.

Re:A screen

[YrWrstNtmr]

What is needed is not so much a screen, but rather a solid angled metal shield

Heavy and impedes airflow when deployed

that projects about 1-2 feet in front of the air intake for the engine on take off and landing

Immensly strong support structure. 15 lb bird at 250mph is a LOT of force. And impedes the needed airflow into the engine.

and retracts at cruising altitude.

Heavy, complex retracting mechanism.

Decades of aero engineers have never, ever thought of such solutions, yet 3 minutes of /. analysis can fix it.
Amazing.

Re:A screen

[ryl000]

I'd imagine that the difficulties in designing a shield/screen to continually withstand the forces wanting to pull it into the engine more than offset any advantage it'd provide in screening any foreign objects out.

Re:A screen

[YrWrstNtmr]

So what if the cone continued up to the edge of the engine cowling?

If jet engines didn't need air to operate, you might have a solution.
However...

Re:A screen

[YrWrstNtmr]

That's why the cone would be made of a grid of rigid wires that would let quite a lot of air through, of course.

And 15 lbs of diced bird. Problem remains.

Re:A screen

[QuoteMstr]

Err, no. The point is that the angle of impact would be shallow enough that the bird wouldn't be diced, but instead tossed aside.

Re:A screen

[TheLink]

Then the engine won't work so well.

But if you do it right, you can design a jet engine that will exclude "foreign objects" from airflow during takeoff - at the cost of power loss, extra weight and complexity.

The shield could be retracted at cruising speeds to restore full power and efficiency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOD#Engine_and_airframe_designs_which_avoid_FOD

The Russians did try with the MIG 25 (and probably some other planes - Su27?), but some of their customers experienced problems - the debris was actually accumulating at the edge of the screen/door and dumped into the engine when the screen was retracted! Doh! :). But I think that got fixed by now.

So it's possible, it's just whether people think it's worth it.

Re:A screen

[Anonymous Coward]

As a beginning point, IAAAE (i am an aerospace engineer). The primary control surfaces of an airplane are on the trailing edge of the wing, making them quite a bit less vulnerable. Also, seriously? Block the engine intake momentairly so the the bird gets routed around? There are two problems with this. First, is you are talking amazingly fast systems to mechanically move something to redirect whatever it is you are trying to redirect. Not possible. Too much mass, too little time (like a millisecond or two of detection then decision then action). Also, there is nowhere to "route too". Chances are when the bird hits, it's going to hit in the bypass region of the engines. This is the region which is partially used for cooling, but also where most of the forward thrust is derived from (in modern airliners, the engines are like a ducted turbo-prop basically) The second problem is that the problem is not the bird hitting the engine core and messing up the turbine system. It's not like the bird parts are getting sucked into your compressor stages and causing them to stall out because bird parts aren't combustible. The problem is that when the bird strikes the main fan (the big thing up front a.k.a the bird blender), it causes an imbalance in this huge mass that is rotating rather quickly. This then causes problems in the entire engine with bearings starting to get overstressed, tons of heat and wear getting introduced, and the system shutting down due to these problems. Mind you, this all happens over a fairly short amount of time (like a few minutes).

Re:A screen

[YrWrstNtmr]

the cone would be made of a grid of rigid wires

Please describe how the bird would be deflected and not diced by the 'rigid wires'.

Re:A screen

[CompMD]

...which also prevents air from getting to the engine, making it kind of hard to run.

Decals anyone

[zmnatz]

I think if you painted cool flames on the sides it would scare birds away. Maybe a shark mouth on the nose.

Old problem

[cdrguru]

I believe this first started to be recognized as a significant hazard after WW II on Pacific island air bases. Gooney birds would nest near runways and impact aircraft. An impact with a B-29 wasn't that big a deal and did not affect the engines. Impact with a much faster jet aircraft was a problem and with fighter planes could easily bring down the aircraft.

I recall reading about this a long, long time ago. They tried everything they could to discourage the birds from nesting by the runways. Loudspeakers playing music or other noises didn't work. Shotguns or "bird scarers" didn't work. Egg relocation - physially moving the nest and eggs didn't work. Killing the birds worked, but only so far as they carried out extermination. The problem was there are a lot of birds out there and unless you are actually prepared to kill all of them, it doesn't solve the problem - or, as was found out, even lessen the hazard all that much.

Modern folks need to have studied up on what was done previously so they can skip over all that stuff that didn't work very well. Concentrate on new stuff. And no, I seriously doubt any "electromagnetics" are going to have that much of an effect considering what else has been tried before.

Re:Old problem

[n30na]

Mind control might work.

Re:Old problem

[T Murphy]

You never mention problems on aircraft carriers. Maybe we should study what makes the difference and have our airports copy the carriers.

Re:Old problem

[Grishnakh]

I imagine being in the middle of the ocean rather than on land greatly reduces the number of birds nearby when carriers launch aircraft.

Re:Old problem

[T Murphy]

I'm glad you've found the solution so quickly. I think the Denver airport should be first to be retrofitted.

Deer Repeller

[br4nd0nh3at]

Anyone know if those Deer warning things on cars work for birds? Put those on a plane.

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So true. My wish for 0+1j Confused has not been granted as well.

Re:Airbus

[leathered]

Bull-fucking-shit.

Open up, troll...

[Animaether]

here comes the airplane... vrrrrrrrrrrr http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/09/0035253 ...good boy!

Re:Airbus

[stinkytoe]

As right as you may be on all points reguarding THIS incident, there are many many more documented cases of birds destroying engines, windshields, air speed sensors (which you just CAN'T fly without in modern aircraft), etc... so bashing airbus' engineering principles is going to do nothing to help this problem.

Screen the Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't the designer put a screen over the front of the engine to keep things out? Like the cow-catchers they put on locomotives one hundred years ago to keep stray cows out from under the wheels of a locomotive. A screen in front of the engine would allow air into the engine but would squash or push solid objects (like birds) out of the way.

Erm.... Machine guns ?

[Latinhypercube]

Mounted on the hood. Might be fun in flight entertainment !

solution

[Anonymous Coward]

they should just weld a metal grid over the engine inlet. stops birds flying in without affecting airflow!

TIMMMAAAH

[Sir_Lewk]

For Airplane Safety, Try To keep Birds From Planes

Holy shit, I've seen gradeschoolers with better grammar.

..with friggin laser beams on their heads.

[c0d3r]

How about birds with friggin laser beams on their heads.. or a friggin laser beam on the head of the plane?

star trek

[Anonymous Coward]

they need to enable shields.

Some things to think about

[meerling]

Planes fly much faster than the birds.
Planes have far less maneuverability than the birds.
Radar isn't that good on a couple pounds of flesh, so detection range is limited right now.
Even if the radar on the planes was improved to easily detect birds, the range would still have effective limits because birds move and change course.
By the time the birds detect the plane, they don't have much of a chance to avoid it.
There is a whole lot of sky to cover, the only feasible method is to cover controlled areas. Aka - the airport airspace, and the planes immediate path.

The best solution is to keep the birds out of the plane flight paths. How to do that is the problem. It's exacerbated by the open fields of the airports being ideal habitat for the birds. One thing airlines do is try to set their flight paths at altitudes that birds don't normally travel at, but that isn't always possible.

Wetlands near airports

[wowbagger]

This is very true: consider this: Cessna has this big ponds just south of Wichita Midcontinent Airport. Needless to say there are a BUNCH of Canadian Geese there, RIGHT IN THE FLIGHTPATH OF THE AIRPORT. In fact, given the prevailing winds, most take-offs are to the south.

Heck, I hate even DRIVING past those ponds on K-42, due to the birds flying low over the road.

Re:Wetlands near airports

[Grishnakh]

There's a simple reason for this: no one wants to live next to the airport for some reason. So, the land becomes low-valued, and becomes a wetland. Or, they build the airport next to a wetland because it's cheap, and again because no one else wants to live next to it.

The simply solution is for the government to force airports to be built away from wetlands, near residential areas, and to force people to stay there and not move out or devalue the homes. I'm not sure how they'd do this, but I'm sure they can find a way. Perhaps surveil realtors and find people looking to buy in the area, and grab a few at random and force them to purchase a house near the airport at full price under threat of violence.

Or people could just accept that bird strikes are the price they pay for wanting air travel but not wanting to live near the airports.

Re:Wetlands near airports

[sznupi]

I think you make it to complicated...

Airports simply need buffer zones around them for security, noise, etc. The problem is that many environmentalists are totally out of touch with reality; since they saw those areas as excellent locations for wildlife habitats, they pushed laws to that effect, on top of ones establishing buffer zones.

A shame, really...those people have generally quite likeable world view, but once in a while there's something like this... (other notable idiocies beeing anti-nuclear and wanting to turn all major rivers into concrete waterways for energy generation (well, tbh they don't realise that what they want would require turning rivers into concrete waterways...))

Re:Wetlands near airports

[WaXHeLL]

And then there's San Diego's airport, which is completely surrounded by housing, commerical businesses, and everything else. Not much of nature nearby.

Keep Birds Away from Planes

[clickety6]

I quite agree with the FAA here. They should never have let women qualify to become pilots in the first place...

Oh wait...ah, I see... never mind...

Let natural selection do it

[Thaelon]

Natural selection will take care of it eventually.

Just keep murdering birds with airplanes until all the ones that don't get out of the way of planes have been removed from the gene pool off.

Not a real quick fix, you understand, but probably incredibly effective!

And develop planes that are better suited to simply take a duck in the face at 150 knots. If as a result, the bird strike does no serious damage to the plane, then you can let my previous proposal work.

Re:Let natural selection do it

[pz]

Natural selection will take care of it eventually.

Just keep murdering birds with airplanes until all the ones that don't get out of the way of planes have been removed from the gene pool off.

Not a real quick fix, you understand, but probably incredibly effective!

And develop planes that are better suited to simply take a duck in the face at 150 knots. If as a result, the bird strike does no serious damage to the plane, then you can let my previous proposal work.

Brilliant!

Except that, let's see, birds have typical generational periods of 1-2 years, and there's been commercial aviation for about 100 years, heavy aviation for perhaps 50 years, so there's been plenty of time for natural selection already, and it hasn't worked.

And except that planes are already designed to take bird strikes. There are limits as to what can be done, engineering-wise, without making the planes unacceptably heavy or costly. Do you really, honestly, think that you can come up with a simple solution in 30 seconds that wasn't thought of already by legions of professional aeronautical engineers?

Bird strikes are a difficult problem. There is no easy, simple solution. One of the issues is that many bird strikes happen in open air, where airfield abatement procedures are irrelevant. Another of the issues is that birds quickly learn what is a real threat and what is a, forgive me, straw man, so that even at the airfield, abatement procedures lose their impact pretty quickly.

Re:Let natural selection do it

[dancingmad]

You don't understand natural selection.

Is flying in front of plans a genetic trait?
If not, it can't be selected for or against.

I wish people would take a few biology classes when they're in college.

Re:Let natural selection do it

[Tomfrh]

Is flying in front of plans a genetic trait?

Of course. That's why geese crash into planes and penguins don't. The penguins just don't got the genes for it.

Re:Let natural selection do it

[jotaeleemeese]

There are a plethora of genetic traits that would contribute to a bird flying in front of a plane.

Random selection would arguably work by removing birds with a certain set of traits, irrespective of which ones they are (migration, flying at a certain altitutde, time of the day or night at which they flight, etc, etc etc).

Two solutions...

[GottliebPins]

Freakin' laser beams! Flame throwers

Re:Airbus

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the post isn't well written. The name Airbus shouldn't be int the possessive form at the beginning of the third sentence.

low tech solutions work, too

[bobby_tables]

A few airports around the world are using Border Collies to chase birds off:
Google Search
Cost wise, a piece of equipment that lasts forever obviously wins, but 1-2 dogs + 1 handler + food and water would be pretty cheep for quite some time.
Some anecdotal reports suggest a 92+% decrease in bird strikes. And TFA even mentions trained dogs...

Re:Airbus

[MooUK]

So explain the recent Ryanair 737 that had bird-strike-induced flameouts the other month. That was already on landing approach, and whilst it landed moreorless on the runway, one MLG collapsed as it came in very hard. The airframe has now been written off.

Cats

[suggsjc]

What are birds afraid of? Cats.

So it would seem obvious that you should just paint the airplane to look like a cat. That way when the birds look over their shoulder, they think they see a cat sneaking up on them and they evade as quickly as possible.

Re:Cats

[Anynomous Coward]

Have you ever seen a Canada goose that's afraid of a cat ? Actually it's the other way round. Heck, my Maine Coon already starts meowing "I can coming in plz ?" when pestered by a magpie a quarter his size.

Re:Cats

[demonlapin]

So get bigger cats. Heck, everybody seems to wonder what to do with mountain lions out west. Import a few.

Re:Cats

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth is this insightful? Funny, yes. But insightful???

Re:Cats

[Anonymous Coward]

it's no problem to mount the cats upside down. The only important part is to mount a toast with marmalade on the other side. The plane will flip but hoover above the ground.

In fact, this could be the basis for a new kind of maglev...

We are only visitors...

[cyber1kenobi]

The air really belongs to those animals... anything we do to prevent them from being in the areas is only going to cause more harm. Can't we just develop teleportation already?!

Re:Airbus

[BobMcD]

I'm totally neutral in the Airbus v Boeing issue, but I fail to see how a post that provides no affirmative information is '+5 Insightful'.

What, praytell, did happen?

Natural predators

[Locke2005]

Birds are deathly afraid of snakes... has anyone yet tried Snakes on a Plane?

Re:Airbus

[icebike]

Sully's engines were not turning when it hit the water.

Avoid the birds

[Ichoran]

The best solution seems to be for planes to not hit birds. Planes move way too fast for birds to dodge at short range, and at long range they don't know what to expect--nor should we expect them to unless we install bird telepathy projectors on the planes.

On the other hand, planes move really fast, and a small change in angle early on will take the plane far away from, say, a flock of incoming geese. The question is, then, _where are the geese_?

Now, geese might be hard to see from a plane when they're lost in a bunch of buildings and what not. But they're not hard to see from the ground if you have a clear line of sight to the sky and a good IR illumination system. So you sweep your flight path from the ground until an altitude where bird strikes aren't likely to be a problem with a strobed IR laser and look for returning flashes. Ground control tells the plane where the geese are and which way they're going (and how fast), and the plane takes evasive action.

Re:Avoid the birds

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I came here to say the same thing. It's like boats, the slower and/or less maneuverable vessel always has the right of way.

The birds should have the right of way, the trick is figuring out how not to hit them.

Either that or exterminate all birds (and sailboats, ;).

Re:Avoid the birds

[Carewolf]

I think large enough flocks of birds register on radar, you might need lower radar though. If radar is not working, try sonar arrays around the airport. Would need a lot of test though to make sure the sonar doesn't turn the rest of the wildlife crazy.

Re:Airbus

[NetNinja]

I don't want to point out an observation but I will keep note of each type of manufactures aircraft that do go down due to some sort of mechanical, FOD or act of God. At the end of the year let's tally the losses. Sounds morbid I know but the FFA keeps track of it.

Cats

[CopaceticOpus]

Birds hate cats, so simply mount a few dozen cats outside the plane near the engines. Don't forget to mount the cats with their feet pointed down, or the plane will flip when you try to land.

Chaff rounds packed with bird seed could also work, but the cats should be more cost effective.

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[Jarik C-Bol]

its more like there needs to be a " -1 annoying" moderation setting.

They probably were more than 8 pound geese

[smellsofbikes]

Canada geese are big. They start at 6 1/2 pounds and go up to just under 20 pounds. And not that this matters too much with a jet, but they're also fairly fast fliers: I've been passed by Canada Geese while taking off in a Cessna, which puts them in the 60 mph range.

Building a vehicle that can handle a 450 mph collision with a 15-20 pound object is intrinsically difficult. Military tanks can do it, but their acceleration over about 60mph is terrible. I don't know of any other vehicles that could handle this sort of impact without getting very bent and broken.

And you can't just use elevation, either: I've read pilot reports of birds seen at 37,000 feet above ground level.

Re:They probably were more than 8 pound geese

[EmagGeek]

>> And you can't just use elevation, either: I've read pilot reports of birds seen at 37,000 feet above ground level.

The temperature at that altitude is on the order of -55C. I doubt any species of any creature can survive that temperature. The pilot report was probably an exaggeration.

The pressure at 35k feet is also only about 180mm Hg (as opposed to 760mm at sea level). That might support life, but between that and the temperature... I think it's a stretch.

Re:They probably were more than 8 pound geese

[smellsofbikes]

Oh, I know -- it's hard for me to believe, too, since I live at 10,000 feet and feel the effects heavily.
Here are a bunch of reports about flocks of birds at 25,000-27,000 feet (including flocks of migrating geese.)
I can't find an easily linkable cite to the 37,000 foot case, but here's a pdf, from which I quote:
"Collision between a vulture and an aircraft at an altitude of 37,000 feet. -- On 29 November 1973, a Ruppell's Griffon (Gyps rueppellii) collided with a commercial aircraft at 37,000 feet ofer Abijan, Ivory Coast, western Africa. The altitude is that recorded by teh pilot shortly after the impact, wichh damaged one of the aircraft's engines and caused it to be shut down. The plane landed safely at Abijian without further incident. The remains of the vulture consisted of five complete and 15 partial feathers from the wings (secondaries, lesser, and underwing coverts), tail, neck and breast."

It goes on to cite other over-25,000 ft collisions and observations.

Life and Risk

[yoshi_mon]

What strikes me most about a subject like this is what I see as a mass denial by many: life is inherently risky.

At some point there may be a method to keep birds away from aircraft. Or aircraft might operate such a different way that birds are not a threat to them. But that is not the point. Rather so many people seem to think that life should be totally risk free.

Re:Life and Risk

[geekoid]

There is no reason not to make things like this safer.

Yeah, there is risk But I like to mitigate it whenever possible.

Re:Life and Risk

[einhverfr]

Next up: coming up with a technological solution to prevent cars from crashing into eachother or losing control and skidding off cliffs. Let's insist that every car MUST ship with an avitation-quality TCAS installed ;-)

Re:Life and Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a train. If we had them, travel would be obscenely safer.

Re:Life and Risk

[JNSL]

That's ridiculous. Why should people bend over to the way things are? The fact that people do anything to secure themselves and others is implicit recognition of risk. They key is not maximizing safety, but optimizing it. After all, we don't walk around with boomboxes on our shoulders to prevent people from running into us. It would help, but is not optimal.

Huh?

[Das Auge]

You guys use falcons? That's just mean.

Really, who ties a falcon to a plane before lift off?!

How about a goose-whistle?

[Ozlanthos]

Knowing what I know about wildlife in general, I seriously doubt that there is not a single sound pitch that can divert the path of flying birds. To me such an idea is inconceivable. Here in the northwest we have an issue with running into deer, elk, and other wildlife. One clever chap came up with the idea of mounting "deer-whistles" on the front of his car. The whistle emits a high-pitched sound that warns and perturbs deer and other wildlife before they get "amazed" by your head-lights. I guess my question is, due to the fact that sound still travels faster than "most" planes (commercial and most private aircraft anyway) why is it these guys can't find a "whistle" for gees and other birds? There is a call designed for drawing them in to shoot them, why can't their be a "call" to get them to migrate out of your flight path?

-Oz

Re:Airbus

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm. How to parse? Well, since the operators are the same, I guess we'll bind left to right.

(bull-fucking)-shit

Sentient, bull-fucking shit. Just what this world needs.

NASA, True Story

[Das Auge]

Okay, I'm a little shoddy on the details (this story was told to me years ago), but the gist of it stands.

An airline company wanted to improve the construction of their cockpits to withstand hitting a geese. So they went to NASA and essentially asked them to build a "bird gun". Simply put, it was a gun to fire a birds carcass (chicken) at the cockpit at speeds of a few hundred miles an hour.

So NASA built it for them and sent it off.

A few days later, NASA gets a call from the airline informing them that the gun was way more powerful than they'd asked for. The chicken went through the windshield, the pilots chair, and embedded itself into the bulkhead.

After a little back and forth, NASA figured out the problem. They told them, "There is no such thing as frozen flying birds. Next time, thaw the chicken first."

If it was over land?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep wondering what would have happened if this occurred at Denver instead of New York. No soft place to land, unless they could have made an airport.

Re:Airbus

[geekoid]

Engine sensor being 'taken out' would cause the status to change which would give the pilot full control.

BZZZZT try again.

Just one

[Groo Wanderer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_gpPbpONK4

And a bit more here:

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Man_Sucked_Into_Jet_Engine

Good enough?

                    -Charlie

Re:Just one

[MurphyZero]

That's a man who's been in once, but I don't think you're going to get him to do it a second time.

Navigational Deflectors

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll do it. Maybe something that projects a strong sonic get-the-hell-out-of-the-way-panic in front of the plane.

barriers

[shentino]

Why not put bird barrier meshes in front of the intakes?

We already have cowcatchers for trains.

If angled properly, the sheer momentum of the birds shoudl cause them to roll off the fence.

Shield

[sexconker]

Why not stick a shield in front of the engine?

No, not a disc, but a grid of thin spikes (parallel to the plane), ahead of the engine.

Everyone bitches about not being able to dodge the birds because the plane moves straight and can't turn quickly.

Use that to your advantage. Put a little frame of thin metal poles far enough ahead of the engine that it doesn't block the airflow. If a bird is on a collision course with the engine, it'll hit the spikes and get stuck. Make the spiked long enough to stack several birds. If it breaks, it breaks. You survived a bird attack, and that spiked grid will just fall to earth and hopefully impale some people.

Re:Shield

[cstacy]

Why not stick a shield in front of the engine

Because the birds will learn to modulate their harmonics and penetrate the shields. Resistance is a futile (and also a drag).

Re:Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

The spikes could also move to the rear of the engine for a good roast that can be served to coach class!

Re:Shield

[TheThiefMaster]

Why not just a metal grid over the engine, which is raised slightly forward in the middle?
Bird hits grid, bird bounces off grid and goes around the engine.

Re:Shield

[sexconker]

Deflecting it around the engine is harder than you'd think, those things suck in a lot of air.

Plus when it breaks off it's not a spikey death ball with bird carcasses.

Re:Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

/get sucked into the engine and create a far more dangerous situation than a bird getting sucked in.

Star Trek has the answer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shields up!

You never saw any birds get sucked into starship engines, did you?

Of course it won't work if genetically modified intellectually and physically superior birds have hijacked a friendly ship...

Re:Airbus

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, do, that's fascinating if true

Wire mesh?

[Trogre]

Very thin, strong wire mesh in front of all jet engines?

Re:Wire mesh?

[Beowulf_Boy]

great idea, until the mesh collects ice on it, gets too heavy for its supports, and is sucked into the engine. Engines are designed to take a bird strike, but not a big ball of ice and wire mesh.

Re:Wire mesh?

[Trogre]

Did I mention it was hot? Yes, heated wire mesh would do it.

But that sounds a lot like over-engineering...

Shred before impact

[joshier]

How about a nautilus laser system that constantly spins within the front intake, thus on impact the birds are essentially vaporised and cause much less stress on the blades.

Best Idea Yet Presented!

[littlewink]

This is the best idea yet presented. And it's possible to do it.

The only correct solution is a jet engine that can handle birds. The OP's proposal is both smart and evolutionary (it's an extension of existing jet engine technology). So I suggest the OP get a patent ASAP!

anon

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual we humans have it bassakward. Our aircraft are invading the bird's habitat. I haven't heard one lament for the dead geese. Aircraft, wind generators and buildings and towers kill millions of migrating birds a year. The air was theirs before we came and it'll be theirs when we're gone.

Re:anon

[joshier]

Propose a different flight system or transport method then. I think trains are good as they can be a) improved easily for electric motors b) they are reliable and on time c) they use one small path for travel d) very few animal deaths, as the surface area they actually cover is just the top surface of the rails. Obviously if you have a large animals in the center then they may get killed but they can always hear it coming.

Here it comes..bzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

Use some frikkin' lasers...

Forget Lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget Lasers, 2 shots from the ion cannon will clear the path.

Laser net

[Anonymous Coward]

Giant laser nets in front of the planes.

Of course, by then the plans would need to be nuclear powered but hey.

The problem is they want a *free* solution!

[cyn1c77]

Increase the hunting season and limits around airports throughout the country. It won't hurt the airplanes. A shotgun with is only lethal for what, 70 yards tops?

Or, like others have noted, put a birdcatcher in front of the engine inlet to deflect the birds, like cowcatcher did on trains.

The real problem is that the airlines and airports are not willing to accept decreased efficiency (lower profits) for increased safety. No new news there.

Re:The problem is they want a *free* solution!

[EmagGeek]

First, the airlines are not turning profits, so it would not be a matter of turning lower profits for increased safety. And, we're not talking about a 5% decrease in efficiency. The grille would decrease the efficiency of the engine by a substantial margin - likely 30-50%. An aerodynamic grille would simply slice the bird into lots of smaller bits that would still destroy the engine. A grille that could withstand some impact would destroy the aerodynamics (while still not stopping the bird entering the engine)

Second, putting anything in the flow of air entering the engine is extremely dangerous. If a single nut, bolt, washer, or other piece of debris were to fall off and enter the engine, it would destroy it.

Third, such a grill would never, ever withstand the impact force of an 8lb bird at 200+ knots. Ever. Not in a million years. The grille would either deform badly, taking the engine shroud with it. Or, it would break off and enter the engine, destroying it completely.

The grille suggestion was made 30 years ago and it is as bad an idea today as it was then.

Can't be this simple

[midwestsilentone]

Surely its not that simple? Put a cage over the engine intake, like you would have over any industrial engine some idiot could put his hand in! A flock of 8lb birds, surely you can keep 7 of 8 out?!? You could even put warning stickers on it! That would keep the rest away.

Easily Solved

[Anonymous Coward]

The most logical solution to this problematic scenario would be to equip all prone aircraft with extra backup engines. The airline that completes this transition first can announce that they have set a new standard in aerodynamic safety, if it is done correctly.

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give the trolls any ideas. Geez... you must be high or something.

You have no idea how fast this comes up.

[Chas]

If you want an idea, watch this video from a few years back. Keep an eye on the center left of the screen.

Re:You have no idea how fast this comes up.

[800DeadCCs]

WOW.
What kinda jet was it and where did it happen/come from?

Re:You have no idea how fast this comes up.

[Peter Simpson]

Wow. Scary stuff.

"prepare to abandon aircraft"

Don't think I ever want to hear that.

Re:Airbus

[Waste55]

The Auxiliary Power Unit took control when the engine was not generating power which allowed the pilot to land the plane.

http://minnov8.com/2009/01/26/honeywell-backup-system-is-said-to-have-saved-usair-flight-1549/

Bird Radar

[JumpSocial]

Why can't the jets have an on-board radar that detects the birds when they ahead? It could alert pilots and perhaps even cause a computer to evade. Especially if the radar/computer system can compute bird trajectories.

Been done already

[TheLink]

Something like that is possible. At low speeds the engine can even run while taking air in from the sides. Been done already [1]

The deflectors have to be a extremely reliable - a malfunctioning deflector is likely to do far more damage than a bird.

This is because many jet engines are already designed to be able to take a hit from a chicken sized bird[1] - http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1134/is-a-chicken-gun-used-to-test-jet-engines

So your deflector has to pose less risk than that. Or it'll cost more lives than it'll save.

Anyway, it's technically viable, not sure whether it's commercially viable for commercial passenger jets.

[1] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOD#Engine_and_airframe_designs_which_avoid_FOD

[2] The problem I guess is when both engines suck in half a flock each ;).

one word...

[drew]

Lasers!

(duh...)

Slow down

[not_surt]

Fly slowly and let the birds avoid you.

In a car ...

[flnca]

... you don't worry either. Put a grille in front of every engine, hard enough to withstand the birds. Automated cleaning systems could then get rid of bird goo during flight, if necessary. How about non-stick teflon?

Re:In a car ...

[EmagGeek]

First, such a grille and engine shroud would never withstand the impact of an 8lb bird at 200+ knots. Second, the resultant debris would certainly destroy the engine, as if destroying the aerodynamics of the air entering the engine would not be bad enough.

Re:In a car ...

[flnca]

Really? There's absolutely NO material that could withstand the impact? How about something elastic then, that bounces the birds off? ... Bah, I'm disappointed with compound material research.

Re:In a car ...

[EmagGeek]

Oh, there is material that could handle it, but the plane would not be able to fly because it would be too heavy. You could make an airplane that would withstand hitting a NYC bus at 200 knots, but it would weight so much as to require the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters just to get off the ground.

It's not an issue of availability of strong materials. The issue is that the planes have to fly and the engines have to work and it all has to be safe.

Putting any obstruction in the path of airflow into the engine dramatically increases risk and decreases engine function.

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, a freaking horn people...!

Honk if you like birds.

Eyes on jet engines

[twosat]

Many jet planes have white off-center dots or spirals painted on the spinner of their engines. In flight, these give the impression of flickering "eyes" thereby scaring away distant birds. I remember reading years ago that this trick has helped reduce the bird-strike rate.

Re:Airbus

[twosat]

You will probably find that more Boeing planes will crash, simply because there are a lot more older Boeings flying than the Johnny-come-lately Airbus company. What would be more interesting would be to see how many new-model planes from each manufacturer crash.

migration routes

[Anonymous Coward]

So any sort of habitat destruction on the ground would have zero effect on them anyway. Good luck changing their migration routes too.

I am by no means an expert on the matter of bird migration, but I seem to remember reading that the migration routes are not something FSM given but follow routes that are less dangerous or demanding on the birds or offer more resting places than other routes. So changing features on the ground should have some effects. Maybe not just destroy existing habitats but create new ones that move the birds further away from airport areas?

Use nature to frighten nature! Falcons!

[adokink]

I thought it was was worldwide used, but it looks like it is not as usual as I previously thought. In Spain, where I live, it is traditional to have one or more trained falcons in airports. Minutes before an airplane leaves or arrives, the falcon makes a few flying courses around the landing area and other birds just fly away scared to the creeps! Looks simple and it is simple, but I do no know if it is useful for BIG airports as JFK or Heathrow.

Birds don't strke planes

[Anonymous Coward]

Birds don't strike planes, planes strike birds. Think of the relative speeds. Birds are happily flying about as they always have, man sticks a huge fast moving chunk of metal in the sky, and its the birds fault when a collision occurs. Got to love humans attitude to their environment.

just talk to them

[Anonymous Coward]

has anybody thought of simply asking the birds not to fly into the engines? or just to avoid airports all together. we could give them a map and mark out airports or busy corridors.

Huge blender

[ManlySpork]

One huge blender in front of the plane, blending everything and anything in it's way. They could set up a joint project with Blendtec for this. Will it blend, that is the question BOEING 747 Edition.

That's good, but here is a better idea

[roman_mir]

How about two giant aerodynamic scarecrows on each wing?

- not bad. Or we could have Natali Portman pour hot grits down my pants.

Well, it's an idea.

Respect nature and plan routes around it...

[master_p]

...just plan flight paths that do not cross bird migration routes. Nature has its own planes, we should respect them.

Duh.

[chazd1]

I mean the technology exists already. What do you think the dish in front of NCC-1701 is for?

Sharks do not frighten birds.

[hicksw]

Paint the plane like a GIANT FALCON...

There, fixed that. Apologies for trying to allow logic to overcome a /. meme.
--
I just realised I am 100 years old (base 8). It is worse when misread in binary.

low drag perforated nose cone?

[hicksw]

What of something like a conical set of vanes rotating freely in front of the compressor flow? With a very shallow pitch to reduce drag and angular velocity and maintain airflow? The goal would be to deflect the bird mass away from the main turbine, but maybe into the fan. Or maybe to slice and dice the meat into smaller bits.

Loss of bonus points for snagging a bird, unbalancing the cone, and making life more exciting that before.

Re:low drag perforated nose cone?

[FlyingGuy]

I suppose a passive set of blades which are symmetrical airfoils with a millimeter or so of angle of attack in relation to airflow "could" deflect some foreign objects, but I think that it would at some point become a problem in and of itself. It will more then likely eventually reach something like 90% N2. So when the foreign object strikes it, it will already have massive stress on it and break leading to the ingestion of metal rather then bird bits.

Military fighter jets have ducting into the intake of their engines and still suffer from bird strikes. It is really hard to say how one could design an engine that gulps in massive amounts of air to avoid ingesting birds.

It must be a software problem.

[hicksw]

Of course the massed intellect of /. can solve this problem in a few minutes. There will be another one along shortly, so we can't spend too much time on just this one.

The snakes-on-a-plane remark disqualifies Python as a means of delivering a solution.

I don't think aeronautics will thank us for a solution expressed in a PERL script.
--
Easy things should be easy, hard things should be possible -- Larry Wall

Businesses should respect a "status quo ante"

[Klistvud]

Businesses should be required by law to exert a "zero-impact" on the environment (and on the community). Meaning: if their business method produces any changes on the environment, such as polluting the air, slowing down automotive traffic, making excessive noise, stinking up neighborhoods, wearing out roads, or killing geese, the law should require them to revert the environment and the community to their previous state (status quo ante). As it is, these "hidden" expenses are now either paid by the society at large, generally through taxes (such as refurbishing roads etc.) or not taken care of at all, resulting in a progressive deterioration of our planet and our society (such as, say, for the killed geese). If businesses were required to actually leave the environment exactly as it was before - or, alternatively, to pay public services to do that for them, such as paying for killed geese to be replaced by new animals brought in from elsewhere - their actual "profits" would quickly dwindle, forcing many businesses to shut down. There are presently MANY businesses which are only able to survive because they make society at large cover the "hidden" damages they produce. If society was to withhold such payments and businesses were forced to pay them themselves, they would instantly go out of business. Apparently, civil aviation is one of them, but I strongly suspect the car industry, the chemical industry, nuclear plants and many many other branches would have to go as well. Personally, I would not shed one single tear for them. I'd prefer it that way than having to pay THEIR profits from MY pocket as I'm forced to do now.

Devil's Advocate

[delcielo]

To play devil's advocate for a moment, let's think about how many flights are made daily, and for how many years we've been making them, and this is the first time we've lost an airplane to bird ingestions in all/both engines. Reducing risk is great (multiple engines, redundant systems, etc), and I'm all for it; but I wonder at what point we see diminishing returns for the cost. Should there be an acceptance of these risks at some level?

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

First time?

Sadly, no.
The only thing making this event get as much attension is the fact that nobody died.

Federally protected wetlands at the airport

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see how well the feds protect airport wetlands from instant concrete dumped into water late at night. After a while, it looks like just another taxiway.

And the answer is...

[Xarin]

Wait until the molting season when the geese can not fly, trap them all and gas them.
http://wcbstv.com/local/bird.strike.prevention.2.1041000.html

Why Paint ? The birds won't notice anyways

[freaker_TuC]

Why paint the plane gray like a shark?

The birds won't have enough time to notice the color or design before being hit anyways!

Re:Hopefully That Control System Won't Brunning Li

[Sinesurfer]

It doesn't matter if you're talking about aircraft control systems or the desktop (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1264259&cid=28283575&art_pos=5) you don't suddenly become right just because you post the same comment.