"Audio telescope" could help mitigate bird strikes
By Cyrus Farivar 
posted Nov 14th 2006 11:16PM
posted Nov 14th 2006 11:16PM
Bird strike has always struck us (har) as a bit of a misnomer. As British comedian Eddie Izzard once pointed out, birds don't exactly fly around looking for planes to go after -- the act of a bird hitting a plane's body or engine should be more adequately described as "engine suck." Either way, it's caused $2 billion worth of damage to US-based aircraft since 1990, according to the FAA. So, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology is currently working on a solution that involves a terrestrial setup of 192 microphones (an "audio telescope," if you will) that aims to pick up on bird sounds and detect what type of bird is approaching oncoming aircraft. The idea is that while a smaller sparrow isn't usually much concern, a larger hawk or Canada goose would be a problem when colliding with planes. One big problem though: currently the audio telescope can only detect birds at distances of a few hundred meters; Vincent Stanford of the NIST says that to really be effective, the telescope would "need to be up to around 2.5 kilometers." So get crackin' fellas, looks like your work is cut out for you.
Why can't they just create a device that makes a sound loud/annoying enough to scare the birds away.
much less complicated that way
Louder than the actually engines themselves? I think that would be annoying enough to scare me away from down on the ground!
Also, what actually happens when you detect the birds...I missed that part. It seems that this is a warning system, not a deterrent. I guess you could at least yell "Goose!" right before you hit it.
I'm still holding out for a smelloscope for all those impending cow strikes.
my father used to be in the air force - one of his favorite details was heading to the flight line with a fully loaded automatic shotgun and "repelling" the geese... surprisingly effective at keeping them out of the engines.
Oi. I was trying to figure out how birds went on strike. I didn't realize they had a labor union.
I have a new rule now. Thou shalt not post before thy 8AM class.
I agree with SOAD, but they have the technology available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_range_acoustic_device
The only thing that might prevent this from working is that the plane might be going the same direction as the sound waves, much faster than an ambulance. I'm not sure of what that will do to the sound itself.
If the planes are up high, I don't think it will be such a nuisance for people on the ground.
Correction.. "the plane WILL be going the same direction."
Audio in guys, not audio out. Besides, what are they going to do when they "detect" a bird? Swirve out of the way?