Jetwhine

Aviation buzz and bold opinion

Wildlife Strikes

What’s New, Wildlife Strike Reporting?

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For reasons unexplained, when perusing the FAA website to see what might be new and/or interesting in advisory circular land, discovering a draft AC 150/5200, Reporting Wildlife Aircraft Strikes, triggered my mental recording of Tom Jones singing “What’s New Pussycat?” That was enough for me to click the link and find out.

Jumping right into it on the first of the AC’s 15 pages, Section 4, Background, updates the wildlife strike numbers, reinforcing the reality that colliding with critters continues to be a risk all aviators should not discount. Birds, naturally, continue to be the predominant threat. Terrestrial mammals accounted for about 2% of the strikes, with the unexpected pairing of flying mammals (i.e., bats) and reptiles tallying less than 1%.

Between 1990 and 2021, aircraft collided with 620 bird species, 52 different terrestrial mammals, 44 bat species, and 29 different reptiles. The AC categorizes the birds as waterfowl, gulls, and raptors. Pilots should report every strike with a bird and bats.

The AC subdivides terrestrial mammals into carnivores and something called “artiodactyls.” Never one to let a new and strange word go uninvestigated. (A zoological noun, an artiodactyl is an order of mammals comprised of even-toed ungulates; and an ungulate is a hoofed mammal.) The AC said they were mainly deer, but if you’re looking to hit something different, it must weigh more than 1 pound. Some qualifying ungulates would be pigs, goats, zebras, the families of deer and sheep, gazelles, bison, and hippopotamus. Coyotes led the list of center-punched carnivores.

A change in Section 6, when to report a wildlife strike, tacitly tells me what evidence the FAA has been receiving. It modified bird or other wildlife remains with “non-desiccated” (which is a more professional way of saying “still juicy”) found “within 250 feet of a runway centerline within 1,000 feet of a runway end.”

In explaining how to report a wildlife strike, Section 7, reports the demise of the pre-address paper Form 5200-7 for telling the FAA what you hit. All strike reports must be reported electronically, “except when using the available Form 5200-7 combined with snarge samples sent to the Smithsonian Feather ID Lab.” (Cool new words are one of the things that got my interested in wildlife strikes; snarge is what remains of a bird after it meets an aircraft.)

In Section 8, the FAA has updated its hazard ratings and increased the number of species in a new table, from 50 bird/mammal species to 79. The table (in Appendix A) shows the number of damaging strikes, total strikes, and relative hazard score, and risk estimates for each listed species. The AC also includes Form 5200-7 updated to match the current online form.

Appendix B diagrams how to collect birdstrike evidence, and to make that effort easier, Appendix C now describes how to “Make Your Own Birdstrike Collection Kit,” which should be standard equipment in every airport vehicle. And given Murphy’s Law, if pilots carry such a kit in their flight bag, it reduces the chances that they will need to use it. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Does Your Airport Have a Wildlife Management Plan?

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ComfortableHawkIf wildlife encounters have made your flying life interesting during last year’s flying season, winter is the time to start thinking about doing something about it before the migrating critters return to your small nontowered aerodrome. Start by asking your airport manager and/or airport if the field has done a wildlife assessment and devised a wildlife management plan. If it has, get a copy and read it. What you learn may surprise you.

Airports certificated under Part 139 must conduct wildlife hazard assessments and develop wildlife management plans. This is no simple, quick, or easy endeavor. It requires time, a certified wildlife affiliated biologist who spends up to a year determining what critters may interact with flying machines each season. With this data, the biologist and airport personnel develop the airport’s Wildlife Hazard Management Plan, also required by Part 139.

The process sounds simple, but guess again. The assessment and resulting plan usually involve the US Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services; the US Army Corps of Engineers (which oversees the nation’s water resources); The US Environmental Protection Agency (if anything from pesticides to landfills is involved); US Fish and Wildlife Service (which oversees migratory birds and federally listed wildlife and their well-being). And then there are all the state natural resources, wildlife, and environmental agencies. When dealing with airport wildlife, killing it is the last option, not the first, and it requires more than a few permits.

The FAA’s National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems lists nearly 3,300 airports that are eligible for Federal Airport Improvement Program. Of this number, fewer than 650 have towers whose controllers can warn pilots of wildlife activity. At nontowered airports (as well as privately owned, public use fields and private strips), pilots are on their own to see and avoid not only other airplanes but also the birds and other critters who have no understanding or appreciation of right of way.

dumpsterThe FAA recommends that operators of public-use airports “implement the standards and practices contained in the applicable Advisory Circulars.” If the airport has received AIP funding, they don’t have a choice in the matter, but they can also apply for funding to help pay for the wildlife assessment and management plan.

If your aerodrome is public-use but isn’t eligible for (or hasn’t been blessed with) AIP funding, start with AC 150/5200-32B, Reporting Wildlife Aircraft Strikes, and work with all of the pilots who fly there to report their strikes. This feeds the FAA’s National Wildlife Aircraft Strike Database and the FAA’s Feather Identification Program, which can give pilots a heads-up on the critters they may face when flying to your (or nearby) airport.

AC 150/5200-33, Hazardous Wildlife Attractants On or Near Airports may give you some ideas on ways you can mitigate wildlife that aren’t too involved, like making sure all of the dumpsters are closed up. And if your community is thinking about a new dump near the airport, read AC 150/5200-34, Construction or Establishment of Landfills Near Public Airports before you attend the public meetings on its creation.

If your wildlife effort somehow manages to raise the funds necessary for a wildlife assessment for your airport, AC 150/5200-36 and AC 150/5200-38 respectively address the qualifications the biologist must possess and the protocol for conducting the assessment. There is much more to read on the FAA’s Wildlife Regulations, Guidance, and Resources page. And if you are really curious, look at Wildlife Hazard Management at Airports.

snowy owlFor more information on promoting wildlife strike awareness and mitigation, visit Bird Strike Committee USA, a volunteer organization that holds an annual conference (August 25-27, 2020 in Minneapolis).

Ultimately, pilots should be critter aware on every flight. Winter is no guarantee that all of them have moved to warmer climes or are taking a nap. In many places, snowy owls arrive with the cold white stuff that falls from the sky. They like airports because airport signs give them an excellent perch to search for prey on a vast expanse of level ground. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Airport Circular is Wildlife NIMBY Guide

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critter 1Officially, the FAA is seeking comments by February 28 on its draft Advisory Circular 150/5200-33C, Hazardous Wildlife Attractants On or Near Airports. After reading the 37-page document, here’s a shorter and more concise title, Wildlife NIMBY Airport Guide.

It includes a diagram with the recommended backyard proximity (separation distances) for airports that serve piston aircraft (any airport that does not sell Jet-A) and those that serve turbines. At a piston airport, the minimum separation from any NIMBY wildlife attractant (as discussed in the AC’s second chapter) like a MSWLF (that would be a Municipal Solid Waste Landfill) is 5,000 feet. It’s double that at a turbine airport.

The AC really isn’t that much different from the one it is replacing. The draft consolidates and reorganizes its discussion of land uses on and near airports that attract wildlife and updates wildlife evaluation and mitigation procedures. (If you’re curious about the details, follow the link above and have a read.)

More importantly, it emphasizes that wildlife NIMBY is important to all airports, public or private, GA or commercial. To critters, any airport is open space, a refuge from the sprawling civilization that’s overtaken its habitat. How the airfield is or is not certified and who it serves matters not to them. But it will matter to the human in an airplane that runs into one of them.

apch birdAnother change relates to the damage a critter collision can cause. The FAA moved the table “Ranking of Hazardous Species” to AC 150/5200-32B, Reporting Wildlife Strikes. Every aviator should carry a copy of it in his or her flight bag because it not only explains when and how to make a report, it includes a report form, which is a handy way to record all of the necessary details right after the strike, assuming you’re not on the way to a hospital.

The FAA distilled the wildlife table from its database of reported strikes. There are 50 critters on the list, and all of them have at least 100 strike reports. Using these reports, the FAA derived a composite ranking based on damage (unknown, minor, substantial, destroyed), major damage (anything that affected aircraft structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics and would require major repair or component replacement), and strike’s effect on flight (aborted takeoff, engine shutdown, precautionary landing or other negative effect on flight).

snow buntingFirst on the list is the white-tailed deer, with a mean hazard level of 55 and a relative hazard score of 100. The next four-legged critter on the list is the coyote, No. 12, preceded by birds, include the snow goose, turkey vulture, Canada goose, sandhill crane, bald eagle, mallard, great blue heron, and American coot. More birds separate the coyote from the red fox, tied for No. 23 with the snow bunting (above).

The next four-legged critter is the woodchuck at No. 32. The striped skunk is last on the list. All of its damage scores are zero, but there’s no mention of the lasting aroma. With so many birds on the list, the AC kindly points out that 78 percent of bird strikes occur at 1,000 feet or lower and that 90 percent occur below 3,000 feet above the ground.

As it is with aircraft traffic, see-and-avoid also works with critters—if you know what to look for. To learn what attracts them, give this draft AC a gander. To further feed your autodidactic critter curiosity, dive into the FAA pages on Wildlife Hazard Mitigation and Wildlife Management. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Bird Strike Investigators Want Your Snarge

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Snarge strikeBird strikes have been one of my passing interests ever since I watched the head-on confrontation between a seagull and A landing A-6 during a wheels’ watch at NAS Alameda in the early 1970s. (The seagull lost, by the way.) Somewhere over the years the experts who study and do their best to prevent bird strikes started using that unusual word in the headline.

“Snarge” is the term given the visceral remains of a bird strike and, it seems to be specific to aviation. According to World Wide Words, a 2003 article in Flying Safety attributed its creation to the Smithsonian Feather Identification Lab, which does all the CSI work, including DNA identification, to identify species involved in the strike. The lab said it got “snarge” from the experts who prepared the bird specimens.

Identifying the species involved is the first step in preventing the problem, says a new and really informative video from the US Department of Agriculture, Strike, Snarge, and Safety: Your Guide to Wildlife Strike Reporting. The USDA’s Wildlife Service maintains the bird strike database for the FAA.  Without knowing the species involved, the experts cannot modify habitats and employ other means of dispersal.

snargeThe video dedicates much of its 12 minutes to the step-by-step collection of remains (pluck, don’t cut feathers, the down matters) and snarge (use alcohol and clean cloths and swabs, not cleaning sprays, which do bad things to DNA) and how to send it the Smithsonian bird strike investigators (BSI) at the feather lab. It even itemizes a collection kit from gloves to swabs to resealable plastic bags, and recommends creating it before it’s needed.

Uniting the various video components is the need to report every bird strike no matter where it happens, because they occur at airports large and small and with a control tower and without. Regulations require military pilots to report every strike, civilian requirements stop at “pretty please!”  In an average year, bird strikes cost aviation $1 billion, so every aviator should watch the birdy, and submit the snarge and other remains when one plays chicken with an airplane and loses. — Scott