November 3, 2012
The U.S. Pacific Air
Forces issued the following news release:
For almost one year now,
Airmen 1st Class Marnell Dillingham and Jarrett Dowey have been cruising around
the flightline three times a day, armed with a pail of bird scare ammunition
and two shotguns. While out there, their role is to scare birds that fly too
close to the flightline.
The two 35th Operations
Support Squadron Airmen help reduce bird strikes on the flightline. According to
Birdstrike Committee USA, these environmental hazards have been the cause of
hundreds of deaths and millions of dollars in aircraft damages a year.
"Preventing bird
strikes is one of the most important parts of our job," said Dillingham.
"If a bird strike happens, it could put our pilots, crew members and
passengers in a very dangerous situation. Birds have been known to cause
aircraft crashes."
The Federal Aviation
Administration receives annual reports recording thousands of wildlife related
strikes. Strikes involving military aircraft cause approximately $75 million in
damage a year.
In an effort to combat
this environmental hazard, the Department of Defense pushes to improve aviation
safety programs. One of these programs, the Bird and Wildlife Aircraft Strike
Hazard prevention program, requires constant interaction among aviation safety
members, air operation shops, pilots and aircrews.
"To ensure the
safety of everyone, we coordinate constantly with the aircraft safety office,
the supervisor of flying operations and the airfield control tower," said
Dillingham.
There are two types of
control measures, active control and passive control, said Dowey.
Active control is when
pyrotechnic, bioacoustics and depredation methods are used to provide
short-term relief. Pyrotechnics use BASH cannons, which produce loud, booming
sounds to scare off birds in the flightline area. Bioacoustics, or the
broadcast of local bird distress signals, is another way to provide immediate,
although short-term, relief. Depredation allows Airmen to scare off birds that
roost on the taxi-ways and cannons by shooting at them with shotguns loaded
with bird scare cartridges.
Passive control measures
involve environmental factors, such as maintaining grass height, smoothing out
hills and eliminating forestry. Trees, shrubs and other plants can draw in
wildlife for food, shelter and roosting sites for birds, so it's important to
eliminate them from aircraft flying area. By smoothing out hills, it maintains
the draining of streams in wet areas.
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