MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Bang! A loud shot pierces the calm afternoon as a flock of egrets scatters toward Penny Lake. These birds were lucky the intimidating noise was nothing more than a small explosion of compressed propane. Even luckier, however, were the pilots, passengers and crews flying in and out of the air station today; just one of these feathered foreign objects could have potentially brought down their aircraft and injured those onboard.
The Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) program, which usually relies on shotguns to purge the flight line of the winged pests, recently boosted its arsenal with six new “cannons” to humanely help rid the flight line of avian engine-destroyers.
The Cordless Land Air Wildlife System employs harmless noisemakers strategically placed around the airfield that can be remotely operated from the air traffic control tower.
“It’s not about eradicating birds; it’s about discouraging and dispersing birds from coming around the flight line,” said Mike K. Gingles, station game warden and Shreveport, La., native. “Killing is not the thing that you really want to do. You want to move them off and keep them off.”
A recent upsurge in the airfield bird population raised enough concern at ATC to rally funding and resurrect a once-failing system.
This year over 300 cattle egrets hatched across the river, and the cut grass near the flight line is a perfect place for birds to hunt for small animals and insects, Gingles said.
The ATC tower monitors the flocks grazing between taxiways and can activate one or more cannons to deliver a series of ear-shattering 120 decibel blasts while the device rotates a full 360 degrees. A set of twin speakers mounted on each cannon also plays pre-recorded predatory noises such as gunshots and barking dogs, encouraging the birds to search for dinner elsewhere.
The cannons won’t harm the birds, but they will definitely startle them, said Cpl. Ryan A. Pope, Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron ground electronics maintenance department technician and native of Union, Mo.
“The cannon makes a loud, resonating sound … It’s basically like an expensive potato gun,” he added.
According to their Web site, the Naval Safety Center has logged approximately 20,000 birdstrikes resulting in two deaths, 25 destroyed aircraft and more than $310,000,000 in damage since 1980. Such numbers can significantly impede the air station’s mission and are the reason why ATC decided to bring the CLAWS system out of retirement.
CLAWS first came online around 1998, but was phased out more than two years ago as the cannons gradually required increasing amounts of upkeep, said Capt. Mike J. McCoy, ATC officer-in-charge and Salt Lake City native.
“Over time things just break. The cannons were in a state of disrepair,” he added.
Although it is too early to determine CLAW’s effectiveness, McCoy has high hopes and says everyone will be using lessons learned from the previous system.
“(The cannons) are helpful, and the biggest thing this time is they won’t be left stationary,” McCoy said. “One thing we know is if you leave them sit for a period of time the birds will get used to them.”