Cadets Work To Prevent Bird Strikes

Cadets at the Air Force Academy’s Aeronautics Research Center are working on developing new methods to prevent bird strikes, which inflict more than $700 million in damage to military and civilian aircraft a year. So far, their research has focused on the feasibility of using speakers now deployed on helicopters on faster, fixed-wing aircraft. The cadets had proven last spring that noise from speakers mounted on helicopters scared birds away. The question now is whether those speakers will function as effectively on their louder fixed-wing counterparts. The research teams also want to determine if flashing lights would have the same deterrent effect on birds. They will gather data through the current semester, and analyze their findings in the spring.