Bird Problem

[Shiny Side Up]

Switching gears from my usual diatribes.

Having issues with birds at the airport. The problem isn't the usual one you would think. They're causing damage to the runway lights by shitting on them. It seems like they're the favorite perches for some of the larger birds. Surpisingly, the corrosiveness of the crap is bad enough to damage both the plastic and metal fittings and ruin the lenses.

Repeated washing of the fixtures doesn't seem viable, or at least I don't have enough time to be making constant shit patrols with my wash bucket. I've tried a few deterrents as well.

1) Little flags and other dangly things on the lights to bother the birds.

Problem: These don't seem to last long given the proximity of airplanes tending to blast them away. possibly a heavier duty set up might last, but I'm loath to emplace something less frangible than the fixtures.

2) Sticky stuff. Another bird repellent, apparently they don't like having their feet stick to things.

Problem: The stickiness just doesn't last long enough and doesn't seem to deter them anyways.

3) The holographic stickers. These sort of work for keeping pigeons out of the hangar, hard to tell.

Problem: Ineffective keeping birds off the lights.

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

[Chuck Finley]

Mossberg 500

[GyvAir]

Would a version of something like this work?

[Shiny Side Up]

That would probably be exactly what we need.

[GyvAir]

I was actually researching these this morning.. still had the window open. The little (and not so little) shyters just love hanging out on the ridge of my new steel roof. And of course, they jettison a load with every landing cycle.

Looks like most of the strips are made so you can cut them as short as about one inch. Some hot glue, construction adhesive or silicone would likely work on the top of a runway light lens.

[Heliian]

Timed air cannons

[Tailwind W10]

At Villenueve all the taxiway lights have a piece of dayglow orange tubing bolted to the post, about 3 or 4 inches on the far side from the taxiway. They're about 12" taller than the light if I remember correctly. Perhaps these are there to help out with the bird problem. I suspect they're close enough to the lamp body to interfere with flapping wings, so birds would want to land on the higher top of the tubing, away from the lamp. I bet birds wouldn't want to land on the end of tubing either.

Gerry

[Notta Simfalt]

This?:

http://www.birdbgone.com/plastic-bird-spikes.html

[GyvAir]

If pnly time were no issue, I'd like the idea of a combination of this:

Mossberg 500

and this:



http://www.birdstrikecontrol.com/bcs.html

[PilotDAR]

A trick I have copied from a hangar I was working in in Santiago is hanging old CD's. I have done this in my hangar, and though not absolute, the results seem favourable. It would be cheap for you to try a bent metal stake, with a drillled CD hanging from the wire/light chain of your choice. See if CDing one light drives them to the next, then you'll know if it works - I only have one hangar, so I could not do a comparative test for effectiveness!

[Shiny Side Up]

A trick I have copied from a hangar I was working in in Santiago is hanging old CD's. I have done this in my hangar, and though not absolute, the results seem favourable. It would be cheap for you to try a bent metal stake, with a drillled CD hanging from the wire/light chain of your choice. See if CDing one light drives them to the next, then you'll know if it works - I only have one hangar, so I could not do a comparative test for effectiveness!

The problem there is that out on the runway such things just don't stand up to getting blasted by aircraft, and I don't want to make it too heavy duty in case it gets hit - lord knows the lights take enough of a beating from airplanes hitting them in the first place. My favorite instance was when the TC king air came here and took out a bunch, then they had the gall to phone me up and tell me that they might have to write up a finding because the runway wasn't up to standards when they visited...

Mossberg 500

Never mind the close proximity of the houses, the chief culprits in this case are hawks and owls, so I don't think killing them would be kosher even if I was that trigger happy. I've seen the owls sitting on them at night, I wonder if its a foot warmer or if they use them in a hunting strategy. Which I don't want to get rid of them entirely, they keep the mice and gopher population down.

[Broken Slinky]

Would a version of something like this work?

They use those all over the ski resorts I've been at to keep the birds at bay. They're somewhat clear plastic so it shouldn't affect the colour or intensity of the light too much.
We used to have rotating propane cannons to scare the birds out of the sunflower fields. They eventually get used to the random pattern/direction that the cannon hits them with. The only way after that was to hit them with the odd bit of lead. Then they'd be scared of the propane cannons for another week or so.

[Cessna driver]

At Villenueve all the taxiway lights have a piece of dayglow orange tubing bolted to the post, about 3 or 4 inches on the far side from the taxiway. They're about 12" taller than the light if I remember correctly. Perhaps these are there to help out with the bird problem. I suspect they're close enough to the lamp body to interfere with flapping wings, so birds would want to land on the higher top of the tubing, away from the lamp. I bet birds wouldn't want to land on the end of tubing either.

Gerry

Those sticks are a pain in the @ss out there with a low wing, some of them are literally 2 inches below the wing

[MUSKEG]

All the more reason to land down the middle. Takes just as much effort as landing off centre.

[slam525i]

All the more reason to land down the middle. Takes just as much effort as landing off centre.

It's a problem when they're taxiway lights, you're flying a low wing, and you have to use the side of the taxiway because of an obstruction.

[MUSKEG]

And just what would this obstruction be? Any airdrome that puts snow posts on their lights is most likely not going to allow obstructions on maneuvering area.

[GyvAir]

^ ^ ^ In a perfect world, perhaps..

[Tailwind W10]

Shiny, just to follow up...
Here's an example of the taxiway lights at Villeneuve. If I recall correctly Cooking Lake has the same posts that others have pointed out are for locating the lamp when the snow gets deep. As the stick will get in the way of flapping wings, I expect these would help keep birds off the lamp bodies.

Taxi Light 1.jpg (404.47 KiB) Viewed 3116 times

Taxi Light 2.jpg (300.17 KiB) Viewed 3116 times

Taxi Light 3.jpg (148.07 KiB) Viewed 3116 times

The two stock ones are about 24" tall, the one with the replacement stick is about 18" tall. I can't argue about the issue of dragging a low wing on them, but the wing would have to be exceptionally low to be a problem.

Gerry

[Shiny Side Up]

We have something similar to aid in snow removal, they don't stop the birds. There birds don't land on those kind since they have the more expensive glass rounded lenses which the birds can't sit on, unfortunately our lights are of a different plastic lensed type. I'd switch to glass lenses, but at around $150/ lens vs $20 for plastic, I'm trying to save on our operations costs. We go through about half a dozen lenses a year.

[7ECA]

Pigeon pokers, the metal spikes that GyvAir mentioned, are probably your best bet. Seeing as how taxiway lights are really only viewed from the sides anyway, putting a small cluster of spikes on top of the lens shouldn't be an issue.

Might also be worth looking at other surrounding airports/aerodromes, and seeing what they use if they have a similar issue.

[burninggoats]

While I don't have any solutions for you, I am glad to hear that the bird sanctuary they built right next to the runway is doing so well

[Geo]

The spikes are used a lot in C-Train stations and fixtures in Calgary (and elsewhere) - and seem to be quite successful. But you cannot argue the coolness of using USB controlled missiles controlled from your office computer.

http://youtu.be/EmZ-QKglyrc

g