Air Force Uses Falcons To Protect Falcons

coondoggie writes "Birds and high-performance jet aircraft don't mix. So at a base in Germany, the Air Force is fighting birds with birds — specifically trained falcons that patrol the base and help eliminate at least some of the feathered threat to the F-16 Fighting Falcons and other aircraft."

Comments

Re:And have been for decades

[idontgno]

how difficult would it be to design some kind of screen or grating to protect the intake vents of an engine

Here is pretty much the canonical list of outcomes:

• Bird hits screen, both bird and screen go into the engine. Similar to status quo, except now there are solid metal or composite bits among the turbine blades.
• Bird hits screen, splats. Engine stalls because of sudden disruption in intake airflow. For an F-16, this is a problem, 'cuz it's single-engine. (In the course of my military career, I've heard the Viper jokingly referred to as the Lawn Dart for that very reason.)
• Bird never hits screen, but engine performance is continuously degraded because of the screen's affect on airflow and intake pressure. Requires serious redesign in order to compensate for a deliberate design decision based on flight-of-safety considerations. Never mind that having less available power and (perhaps) elevated stall susceptibility is a combat-safety issue (i.e., your hazard level in combat is directly related to the performance superiority of your aircraft over your adversary).
• Bird never hits screen, miraculous design work restores full combat specification performance to your warplane, bird hits canopy and knocks out the pilot; unguided plane flies into terrain.

Not everything on that applies to all aircraft, but in general I don't think there's a screen material in the world that would stop birds from engine ingestion (including chunks of bird sucked through a screen) while allowing adequate airflow in a high-performance, high-bypass jet engine. And then that still leaves fuselage, canopy, wing, and empennage birdstrikes.