Bird Strike Prevention - An Operational Approach

Abstract

Current bird strike prevention at airports is performed by wildlife control units and concentrates mainly on keeping birds from the perimeter. This research paper focuses on an approach for procedural bird strike prevention involving pilots and air traffic controllers in the process. A system using bird movement information from radar to predict potential collisions between birds and departing aircraft was developed. In case of a foreseen bird strike, take-offs are delayed until a conflict-free trajectory is predicted for the departing aircraft. Fast-time simulations including deterministic bird movement have demonstrated the safety-potential of the concept while runway capacity was only slightly affected even during high traffic demands. Next to the increase in safety, the potential for remarkable cost-savings was revealed. Operational and repair costs saved by the prevention of strikes outnumbered the delay costs generated by a factor up to 2000. Based on these promising results, a model to include the limited predictability of bird movements is under development to analyse the impact of operational bird strike prevention under more realistic conditions. This paper describes the resulting system set-up and presents first outcomes of the performed feasibility study including uncertainty in bird movements.