July 24, 2009

So is the amount of research to prevent them.

The number of bird -aircraft strikes is growing, but so is the amount of research to prevent them. The world’s only site dedicated to bird – aircraft research is in Sandusky.

It was an accident back in January where 2 migrant Canada geese struck both engines of an airbus forcing the pilot to land in the Hudson River. This accident propelled the problem of bird strikes into the public eye, but the problem had been around long before. Research wildlife biologist Dr, Brad Blackwell says, “Bird strike issues have been with us since the Wright Brothers. They actually crashed into some birds.”

That’s why research like this is so important. “In this experiment it’s a very fine tuned focus on one aspect that is how birds interpret novel objects or aircraft,” says Blackwell.

Wings-clipped, 4 resident Canada geese are held in a 28 foot pen. Seven cameras capture their every move. Then, a remote controlled plane, roughly one-third the size of Cessna, flies directly over them. Their reactions are captured and time stamped on a surveillance system. “You are seeing why geese are dangerous to planes. It’s just a plane that’s all and it’s coming very close so they feel they have to do something,” says Dr. Steven Lima, professor at Indiana State University.

These researchers are trying to get birds to notice the planes and move out of the way faster. One way is using led pulse lights. “When you see it, the bulb actually glows quite brightly. You actually see it igniting and turning off,” says Scott Philiben, VP of Precise Flight Inc.

His experiment has been done on 14 groups of resident Canada geese. These researchers want to soon include other types of birds because the more they know, the less likely accidents like this will happen.

Resident Canada geese are used in these experiments because they are considered an aviation hazard. Also, there is an abundance of them. All of those used have been removed from parks by the state of Ohio.