Birds vs. Planes

It's an unfair battle but occasionally the birds win as happened on Thursday in NY. What's surprising is that more airplanes don't crash because of bird strikes.

The main culprit?

Canadian geese.

From Wired magazine...

The US Airways plane that improbably wound up floating in the Hudson River has drawn attention to bird strikes, but a U.S. Department of Agriculture and Federal Aviation Administration joint report (pdf), released in June of 2008, warned that the danger birds pose to both commercial and military airplanes was on the rise.

From 1990 to 2007 there were 82,057 bird strikes. The trends in the collisions are disturbing as well: In 1990, the industry saw 1,738 bird strikes; in 2007, the number had increased to 7,666. Some of that trend is due to increased air travel, but the number of wildlife strikes has tripled from 0.527 to 1.751 per 10,000 flights.

Growing populations of birds and humans in the same areas have put the species on a collision course. Human developments and bird-restoration programs have created new ecological niches that some bird species have jumped in to fill. In particular, the Canada goose population is proving particularly problematic. Their numbers have ballooned to more than 3.5 million, and the birds don't migrate, they stick around our cities. Many of the geese along the eastern seaboard are closer to feral than wild.

How to combat the growing bird threat?

Chickens.

Fomr the CBC News (Canada)...

At the National Research Council Canada (NRC), the weapon of choice is the "chicken cannon."

The chicken cannon, a 10-inch-bore, 23-metre-long gun, uses compressed air pressure to launch chickens at various airplane components to test their durability.

Since 1968, the "chicken cannon" has fired more than 3,500 times, consuming more than 3.5 tonnes of chickens in the process.

The NRC's institute uses deceased domestic egg-laying chickens for bird strike tests. They are kept frozen and then thawed to room temperature when shot from the cannon.