Air Transport

A new system enabling airports to reduce birdstrike risk has just been launched at the Inter-Airport exhibition in New Delhi, India, the country with the world's biggest birdstrike damage problem. UK-based Scarecrow Bio-Acoustic Systems says airports at Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have shown interest in the new bird-dispersal system, and New Delhi airport may upgrade from its existing Scarecrow system to the new one.

Based on International Civil Aviation Organisation standards, new national and regional regulations - and pressures from airlines - are placing increasing responsibilities on airports not only to provide active bird control measures, but to prove they are carrying them out and monitoring their effectiveness.

Scarecrow's latest system, known as Ultima, is a man-portable device that plays recordings of specific bird distress calls. The technique has a high bird dispersal success rate, but the new equipment also automatically logs the process and builds a database of local bird activity. Installable in any airside utility vehicle, Ultima consists of a computer, a GPS satellite navigation unit, a pair of loudspeakers, and a touchscreen control interface for the operative. Display information includes pictures of local bird varieties, controls to select the appropriate distress call, and the ability to log the dispersal result with a single touch to a screen menu. The entire record of activity can be transferred on a USB data stick to a PC for storage and analysis.

Meanwhile, the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which made birdstrike reporting mandatory in late 2003 following evidence of an upward trend, reported 1,650 birdstrike incidents in the UK in 2005.