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Chicago Tribune
May 11, 2008 The Air Force employs biologists and others to keep runways free of wildlife hazards
By Aamer Madhani, Tribune correspondent
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. — Tom Olexa, a wildlife biologist at this busy military installation, had just left his desk one morning last week when a grim-faced airman tracked him down to deliver some bad news in a Ziploc bag.
A plane ferrying troops returning from the Middle East had just passed through Langley. Soon after the plane departed, Air Force personnel found a dead bird on the runway, apparently the victim of a bird strike.
"Uh-oh," said Olexa, a 31-year Department of Agriculture biologist who works with the base's Bird and Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) team, after he was handed the bag with a dead starling. "Bad luck."
Perhaps the most confounding threat to the Air Force's fleet isn't the fledgling Chinese defense industry or the service's shrinking piece of the Pentagon's budgetary pie. It's the birds.
The Air Force reported $16 million in 2006 from damage caused by bird strikes—a whopping sum but down from more than $54 million reported in 2003. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that bird-related damage has cost the aviation industry as much as $600 million a year.
For the most part, most strikes go unnoticed by pilots, as birds collide harmlessly with jets. But in the worst situations—particularly when the plane strikes a large bird—the outcome can create a white-knuckle moment.
Aircraft are vulnerable in their initial ascent, when the plane needs maximum power, said Capt. Ray Thaler, an F-22 pilot and chief of flight safety at Langley.
"They'll take a bird down an intake … then basically the engine stops creating the thrust that you need," he said. "Then you start getting fire warning indications or other very bad indications. Now you're trying to climb out with one engine and get that [other] one shut down or restarted."
Deadly encounter
One of the worst such accidents on record was a 1995 jet crash at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska that killed 24 crew members after a flock of Canadian geese was sucked into at least two engines. Since 1973, the Air Force has had 42 aircraft destroyed by bird strikes. While they have been a long-running problem for the Air Force and the aviation industry, the Air Force in recent years has become more aggressive in trying to limit the damage.
At Langley and other installations, USDA wildlife biologists like Olexa and naturalists employed by the Defense Department, as well as Air Force safety personnel, spend their days tracking wildlife on bases and scaring away large birds and flocks. The moves have paid off, Air Force officials said.
From 1995 to 2000, Langley spent more than $1.6 million on aircraft damage from wildlife strikes. Since base officials employed the USDA in 2001, there has been just $31,000 in bird-strike damage.
"Before there was more of a knee-jerk reaction, just one of the things that the airfield management would respond to when the birds were an obvious problem," said Master Sgt. Troy Sholtis, the deputy airfield manager at Langley.
In a Ford pickup truck, Olexa is armed with pyrotechnics, a sound system that delivers a high-pitched bird distress call, bird traps and a copy of the American Bird Conservancy's field guide.
Some Air Force bases have also employed falcons to scare off other birds and in extreme cases have killed an offending bird or two to deter others.
A magnet for birds
Yet deterrence is often easier said than done.
In March, Olexa had to trap an American kestrel that persisted on staying around the flight line despite his attempts to chase it away. He tagged the bird and released it 60 miles from Langley.
"About a week later, we found that same bird on the flight line," Olexa said. The kestrel was ultimately killed when it hit a jet.
Situated on the Chesapeake Bay near Hampton, Va., Langley is home to bald eagles, egrets, ospreys and dozens of other bird species. In wet weather, worms and bugs can turn the airfield's grass into an avian feeding trough.
One of the largest, and potentially most destructive, birds that nest near Langley is the osprey. Adult birds, which weigh about 4 pounds and have a 6-foot wing span, have caused some of the most significant damage to jets at the base.
Over the last two years, the BASH team has captured and fitted 16 ospreys with small GPS devices that transmit altitude, speed and direction.
In future construction, officials have agreed to avoid building retention ponds, instead using less aesthetically pleasing dry basins for water runoff. The BASH team has also persuaded the managers of the base golf course to place polyurethane netting on top of the ponds to deter geese.
Troy Andersen, a natural resource manager and a BASH member at Langley, said a few golfers have complained about the way the nets look. "You just remind people that it's about the safety of the pilots and crew members," Andersen said.
May 11, 2008 The Air Force employs biologists and others to keep runways free of wildlife hazards
By Aamer Madhani, Tribune correspondent
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. — Tom Olexa, a wildlife biologist at this busy military installation, had just left his desk one morning last week when a grim-faced airman tracked him down to deliver some bad news in a Ziploc bag.
A plane ferrying troops returning from the Middle East had just passed through Langley. Soon after the plane departed, Air Force personnel found a dead bird on the runway, apparently the victim of a bird strike.
"Uh-oh," said Olexa, a 31-year Department of Agriculture biologist who works with the base's Bird and Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) team, after he was handed the bag with a dead starling. "Bad luck."
Perhaps the most confounding threat to the Air Force's fleet isn't the fledgling Chinese defense industry or the service's shrinking piece of the Pentagon's budgetary pie. It's the birds.
The Air Force reported $16 million in 2006 from damage caused by bird strikes—a whopping sum but down from more than $54 million reported in 2003. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that bird-related damage has cost the aviation industry as much as $600 million a year.
For the most part, most strikes go unnoticed by pilots, as birds collide harmlessly with jets. But in the worst situations—particularly when the plane strikes a large bird—the outcome can create a white-knuckle moment.
Aircraft are vulnerable in their initial ascent, when the plane needs maximum power, said Capt. Ray Thaler, an F-22 pilot and chief of flight safety at Langley.
"They'll take a bird down an intake … then basically the engine stops creating the thrust that you need," he said. "Then you start getting fire warning indications or other very bad indications. Now you're trying to climb out with one engine and get that [other] one shut down or restarted."
Deadly encounter
One of the worst such accidents on record was a 1995 jet crash at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska that killed 24 crew members after a flock of Canadian geese was sucked into at least two engines. Since 1973, the Air Force has had 42 aircraft destroyed by bird strikes. While they have been a long-running problem for the Air Force and the aviation industry, the Air Force in recent years has become more aggressive in trying to limit the damage.
At Langley and other installations, USDA wildlife biologists like Olexa and naturalists employed by the Defense Department, as well as Air Force safety personnel, spend their days tracking wildlife on bases and scaring away large birds and flocks. The moves have paid off, Air Force officials said.
From 1995 to 2000, Langley spent more than $1.6 million on aircraft damage from wildlife strikes. Since base officials employed the USDA in 2001, there has been just $31,000 in bird-strike damage.
"Before there was more of a knee-jerk reaction, just one of the things that the airfield management would respond to when the birds were an obvious problem," said Master Sgt. Troy Sholtis, the deputy airfield manager at Langley.
In a Ford pickup truck, Olexa is armed with pyrotechnics, a sound system that delivers a high-pitched bird distress call, bird traps and a copy of the American Bird Conservancy's field guide.
Some Air Force bases have also employed falcons to scare off other birds and in extreme cases have killed an offending bird or two to deter others.
A magnet for birds
Yet deterrence is often easier said than done.
In March, Olexa had to trap an American kestrel that persisted on staying around the flight line despite his attempts to chase it away. He tagged the bird and released it 60 miles from Langley.
"About a week later, we found that same bird on the flight line," Olexa said. The kestrel was ultimately killed when it hit a jet.
Situated on the Chesapeake Bay near Hampton, Va., Langley is home to bald eagles, egrets, ospreys and dozens of other bird species. In wet weather, worms and bugs can turn the airfield's grass into an avian feeding trough.
One of the largest, and potentially most destructive, birds that nest near Langley is the osprey. Adult birds, which weigh about 4 pounds and have a 6-foot wing span, have caused some of the most significant damage to jets at the base.
Over the last two years, the BASH team has captured and fitted 16 ospreys with small GPS devices that transmit altitude, speed and direction.
In future construction, officials have agreed to avoid building retention ponds, instead using less aesthetically pleasing dry basins for water runoff. The BASH team has also persuaded the managers of the base golf course to place polyurethane netting on top of the ponds to deter geese.
Troy Andersen, a natural resource manager and a BASH member at Langley, said a few golfers have complained about the way the nets look. "You just remind people that it's about the safety of the pilots and crew members," Andersen said.