Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"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?
I think it's for the birds.
Dick Cheney will shoot them all in the face. :)
and build some windmills to generate electricity. i thought those take care of birds pretty handedly. or is it just the endangered ones?
me fail english? thats unpossible
we need to use flamethrowers.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
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
...to look like predator birds. (Laser equipped shark-paintings optional if primarily flying over water...)
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'd rather the birds were cooked outside the engine than in.
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.
Free Martian Whores!
With lasers on their heads.
Best. Plan. Ever.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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..."
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Put a clown on each wing
C'mon, no one's mentioned automatic turrets above every engine? I would pay money to have a window seat if turrets were installed...
Are flocks too small to pick up on the plane's radar? If not, fly around them.
How about two giant aerodynamic scarecrows on each wing?
... these are Kamikaze birds; maybe we should try education?
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
Here in Brazil, they are training falcons to scare birds away from airport zones.
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...
Maybe we should add a warning signal for the birds. Like a really loud noise.
My webcomic
Please provide some reference.
That is a very well written post. Unfortinately that is not what happened. But good job bashing Airbus.
"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.
-JWR
If a giant, noisy flying metal box with flames on its sides doesn't scare the birds, what will?
"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.
> 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).
ON DELETE CASCADE
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
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.
I think if you painted cool flames on the sides it would scare birds away. Maybe a shark mouth on the nose.
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.
So true. My wish for 0+1j Confused has not been granted as well.
Ezekiel 23:20
Bull-fucking-shit.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
here comes the airplane... vrrrrrrrrrrr http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/09/0035253 ...good boy!
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
I am sure that Los Angeles has already had a sewage system implemented quite a long time ago.
Ezekiel 23:20
How about birds with friggin laser beams on their heads.. or a friggin laser beam on the head of the plane?
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.
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
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.
Question everything
Freakin' laser beams! Flame throwers
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...
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
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.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
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?!
Do or do not. There is no try. --Yoda
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?
Birds are deathly afraid of snakes... has anyone yet tried Snakes on a Plane?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
> and they're better at it than we'll ever be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Sully's engines were not turning when it hit the water.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
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.
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.
its more like there needs to be a " -1 annoying" moderation setting.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
little pieces should be easier to "digest", no?
ON DELETE CASCADE
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.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
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.
Sig this!
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.
You guys use falcons? That's just mean.
Really, who ties a falcon to a plane before lift off?!
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
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."
Yeah, they ahve wings, for starters.
I'm not sure what metric you are using to determine 'better'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Engine sensor being 'taken out' would cause the status to change which would give the pilot full control.
BZZZZT try again.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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
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.
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.
Oh sweet FSM! I just imagined what a bird-strike with matter transporters would look like.
Very thin, strong wire mesh in front of all jet engines?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Slashdot is sadly missing the +1 Awesome mod.
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!
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
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.
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.
If you want an idea, watch this video from a few years back. Keep an eye on the center left of the screen.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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/
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.
Inventor, Artist http://www.Rubber-Power.com
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 ;).
Lasers!
(duh...)
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Fly slowly and let the birds avoid you.
... 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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
You can't handle the truth.
...just plan flight paths that do not cross bird migration routes. Nature has its own planes, we should respect them.
I mean the technology exists already. What do you think the dish in front of NCC-1701 is for?
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.
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.
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 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.
Intellectual Property: an immaterial non-entity, most fiercely contended by those with no proper intellect to speak of.
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?
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
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 plane gray like a shark?
The birds won't have enough time to notice the color or design before being hit anyways!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
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.
Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it