MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- U.S. Airways passenger Flight 1549 took off at approximately 3:25 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2009. About 6 minutes later, the aircraft landed in the Hudson River.
Ever since humans have taken to the sky, they have not been alone. Orville Wright probably high-fived a cardinal, North Carolina’s state bird, during his first flight. In fact, research suggests Wright documented one of, if not the first, aircraft bird strike while performing a test flight in 1905.
Of course, Orville would have only been traveling about 35 miles per hour.
Fast-forward to today: even small planes like Cessna’s take off at nearly double the top speeds recorded by the Wright brothers.
As delicate as the Wright Flyers may have been, an F/A-18 Hornet travelling at Mach 1, approximately 761 miles per hour, colliding with a bird becomes an entirely new aerobatic ballgame.
The Department of Defense reports more than $75 million annually in damages caused by bird strikes.
Thus,civilian airports and military air stations all over the world have a Bird/Animal Aircraft Strike Hazard Program; Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni is no different.
BASH is nothing new.
“As news travels at the speed of gossip, the public is more aware of a problem we have been combating in aviation for a long time,” said Maj. Gerard Fontenot, station BASH and aviation safety officer.
While programs constantly evolve, vary widely due to differing locations, and may be very complex, all programs break neatly into two concepts: habitat-and-wildlife management and harassment.
The first step is always habitat-and-wildlife management; this is the proactive approach and is much easier, if possible, at accomplishing the end goal.
“You start with habitat management,” said Fontenot. “The goal of wildlife management and habitat manipulation is to create as close to a biological desert as possible; if nothing is living, it’s much less attractive to the birds.”
Fontenot attended last year’s Bird Strike Committee USA/Canada meeting hosted by Salt Lake City International Airport.
The Salt Lake City Department of Airports has made arrangements with the local government to modify the environment surrounding the airport up to 10 miles out, said Fontenot. Moreover, as much as possible, the area occupied by the airport has been covered in asphalt.
Here, environmental modification is much more limited. The airfield is surrounded by water. Fish live in water. Birds eat fish from the water.
“This is a very challenging airfield because of the water,” said Glenn Prince, the station airfield manager who did his own BASH work while serving with the Air Force.
Getting rid of the water simply isn’t an option.
Thus, harassment techniques must be used.
“They (the birds) get comfortable,” said Prince. “Harassment is the key; you want to harass them as much as possible.”
The initial stage of harassment uses passive measures.
One technique available, once grass actually starts growing, is to keep it trimmed between 6-12 inches. Apparently, birds don’t like the bottom of their wings touching grass. .
But, the grass can’t just be let loose because then the birds use it for cover.
Station personnel have also installed anti-perching devices on top of light posts, poles and other areas where birds like to perch.
Unfortunately, covering the entire ground with such devices is infeasible and this leaves many football fields of land for the birds to setup shop on.
Tier two harassment attempts to appeal to the birds’ sense of fear and self-preservation using non-lethal means.
Since anti-perching devices cannot be placed in the water retention areas of the airfield or on the vast expanses of open land, approximately 34 cordless land air water (CLAW) systems are spread out on the open land.
A CLAW system is basically a solar paneled box with a car radio and a propane tank inside. The CLAW systems can be programed with audio sounds, such as car horns, birds dying, anything really. At the time, the systems did not have audio tracks in place.
So, at the time, the systems were essentially boomsticks.
To use them, a radio operator punches in the code for the desired CLAW system and within a few moments a series of loud booms echo across the airfield.
The volume, especially considering the distance, was nothing short of impressive. It sounded a lot like bombs going off.
The birds, however, seemed less impressed.
While not universally ineffective, on multiple occasions the birds the BASH team sought to frighten seemed totally aloof and unconcerned.
And there’s the proverbial rub. Every BASH program must tailor itself to what is and is not successful.
The whole program is very much a chess game, but the birds have decided advantages.
Some of the birds are smart; probably smarter than the average person gives credit.
For the BASH team’s regulars, the birds’ intelligence becomes highly anthropomorphized.
“Different birds have different personalities,” said Prince. “Geese are the worst because they are fearless. If you see a goose, you don’t want to get out of your car and chase it. Stay in your car.”
The observed response, or lack thereof, to the CLAW systems tends to lend credibility to the birds’ intelligence; i.e., the birds are acclimated to the sound and realize it’s nothing to worry about.
But when facing the birds nearly every day, some develop a more robust analysis of the birds’ intelligence.
The birds know the range of the team’s tools and the birds know where to move so they are out of range when they see the team coming, said Gunnery Sgt. Shane Smoger, station Airfield Operations chief.
“The birds know our vehicles; they know who I am,” Smoger said with exasperation.
Perhaps Smoger has a point; knowing the enemy can be everything.
“Here’s our bible,” said Smoger pointing to “A Photographic Guide to the birds of Japan & North-East Asia” on Fontenot’s office desk.
Also with tailoring comes consideration of what is happening on station. Friday is “dump day,” and this affects where birds will be. So even day-to-day the scenario is changing. Time of year, weather and previous harassment locations can all affect where the birds will be.
Beyond the birds’ natural adaptive strategies, humans inadvertently help.
“The largest problem is reporting,” said Fontenot. “The better we get as aviators at reporting bird strikes, and maintainers reporting bird strikes, the better the program will be.”
The only true way to effectively tailor the BASH program is to have active reporting, not just significant strikes, but near misses, non-damaging and damaging strikes.
A larger pool of data allows the BASH program to be more effectively tailored to the threat.
Every time the BASH team rolls out, the return is fraught with a slew of paperwork identifying what species were where and attempting to decipher where the birds are moving, where they are getting comfortable and what techniques are proving effective.
Even with the level of wildlife management Salt Lake City International has achieved, the SCLI website references 20 hours per day of patrol by airport operations officers armed with a myriad of tools.
Many of these tools are aptly named like fireworks: crackers, bangers, poppers and screamers.
Guess what they do.
While some of these tools may have success elsewhere, the birds around MCAS Iwakuni’s airfield didn’t respond much except when the screamers were used.
And though the concept may be unpleasant, the final option and stage of harassment is lethal force.
“If we ask them politely to leave, they deny our request,” said Smoger.
Make no mistake, the BASH team is not a group of bird hunters out having a good old time. The word is depredation; that’s what the BASH team does and only when necessary.
“It’s more than just getting guns and shooting birds for fun,” said Prince. “It can be a pain.”
Birds aren’t exactly easy targets. An advantage not mentioned, because it’s patently obvious, is the fact that birds can fly.
“It’s very frustrating because they just wait until we leave,” said Fontenot. “They will basically end up harassing the harassers.”
The birds proved unreachable for comment.
Ultimately, the BASH program here is designed with one key principle in mind: Keeping the aviators and the aircraft safe, so they can accomplish the mission; the primary reason all of us are here.