NTSB Seeks On-Aircraft Birdstrike Solutions
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Frances Fiorino fiorino@aviationweek.com
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is seeking to accelerate research on technologies, such as pulsating landing lights, that can be installed on aircraft to frighten birds away.
Bird detection and mitigation efforts at airports, such as avian radars, are mainly focused on detecting or keeping birds away from the airport environment, noted NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Sumwalt. He presided over the board's June 9-10 hearing on safety issues surrounding the Jan. 15 water landing of US Airways Flight 1549.
"But we need to seek other applications" that will separate birds from aircraft, says Sumwalt, calling for stepped-up research into on-aircraft bird deterrents.
Flight 1549 heightened awareness of the growing threat of birdstrikes. U.S. Agriculture Dept.'s Richard Dolbeer noted that strikes have increased 2% per year for the last 15 years - rising from 0.56 strikes per 10,000 aircraft movements in1990 to 1.6 per 10,000 movements in 2008.
A possible on-aircraft solution, installation of pulse lights (also known as pulsing or pulsed landing lights), came under discussion at the hearing. The U.S. Agriculture Dept. tested the hypothesis that landing lights can be manipulated to repulse birds from the path of an airplane. The results of that evaluation, conducted in 2004, indicated that 250-watt white landing lights, pulsed at 45 cycles per min., influenced behavior of the test birds in response to an oncoming vehicle. However, the response was inconsistent in the experiments, according to the NTSB's US Airways 1549 Wildlife Factors Report. Research concluded that further work was needed in exploring avian response to specific light wavelengths and pulse frequencies.
Qantas Airlines, along with Pulselite lighting system vendor Precision Flight, evaluated the effectiveness of pulsed lighting in reducing birdstrike events. The full evaluation period ran from January 2005 through August 2007. Within that period, Qantas installed the lighting system on five Boeing 737-400s and five Boeing 737-800s and conducted normal operations with these aircraft for one year.
Compared with comparable aircraft in the fleet without the pulsed lighting, results indicated that average birdstrike rate was reduced about 10%-30% per 1,000 departures for the 737-400s, and 10%-40% per 1,000 departures for the 737-800s. (The report did not list specific numbers of strikes involved.)
The NTSB launched an in-depth exploration of the certification requirements for ditching and forced landing of transports - which led to asking if Capt. Sullenberger's choice of Hudson River splashdown was the right landing option. "There was greater risk if Sullenberger attempted a return to LaGuardia," testified Terry Lutz, Airbus Experimental Test Pilot-Engineer Flight Operations. He was part of a panel of seven witnesses, including other test pilots and officials from the FAA and European Safety Aviation Agency. "The Hudson River was the proper choice."
Photo credit: New York City Fire Dept.
