An interesting article from the BBC today titled “10 ways to prevent plane bird strikes”

Hardly a week goes by without a plane somewhere in the US making an emergency landing after hitting birds. As these incidents reach record levels, airports are coming up with increasingly imaginative ways of combating them.

Detection using RADAR gets in mention in item 10:

10.The Dutch air force is using a bird detecting radar that could eventually be adopted by civil aircraft. “We’ve known since WWII that radar can see birds, when they were coming across the Channel and they figured it was birds and not German bombers,” says Begier. These bird detecting radars are small and mobile, and technology has come on in the last 10 years, but they can’t yet identify the species or numbers. “The ability to delay a commercial flight with technology that’s not quite there is the problem.”

The above might be referring to the robin radar system.

Source: BBC

Just noticed a call for information on FOD detection systems over on the atc-network website, it’s a bit sparse on details, but it appears to be a request for information (not a formal Tender request) from Thailand.

Here’s the link

There has been a crash at Cork International Airport, six people have been reported dead. For more news see the BBC here, or the Google realtime results.

The Irish Aviation Authority have issued the following statement:

1015hrs 10 February 2011: Flight Avia No FLT400C a metroliner SW4 with ten passengers and two crew has crashed at Cork Airport. No details of injuries or fatalities are available. The aircraft made an approach to Runway 17 in low vis conditions (Category 2) and went around and did not land and attempted a second landing on Runway 35. The aircraft then went around a second time and came back for an approach to Runway 17. On the second approach to Runway 17 the aircraft crashed adjacent to Taxiway C. Rescue and Fire crew are in attendance. There is a fire and debris has been scattered onto the runway and over a wide area. The accident will be investigated by the Air Accident Unit of the Dept. of Transport. This is correct at this time and may be amended as more detail becomes available. (source)

My thoughts go out to the friends and family of those involved.

When I started this site it was my hope that it would be full of articles announcing the sale of FOD detection systems to major airports all over the world. Since the birth of the site back in January (2010) not a single sale has been announced by any of the vendors. Even the recent BAA/QinetiQ conference resulted in no news of sales (actually, it hardly generated any news at all).  I’m in the process of writing an article that describes the current situation with regard to the FOD detection market, my hope is to publish the article during January to mark the 1st anniversary of the website.

I’d like to hear from people who have considered purchasing a FOD detection system, but have, for one reason or another, decided not to proceed. If you would like to contribute then please use the contact form and get in touch. All communication will be strictly confidential.

AINonline have just posted an article that summarizes the current state of the FOD detection landscape.

Here’s an extract:

Since the Concorde accident, four automatic systems have been developed and have been evaluated by the FAA’s Center of Excellence for Airport Technology at the University of Illinois. All four met FAA criteria, and are each eligible for Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funding, effective October 1. One major airport in the Northeast is understood to have ­submitted its AIP application already.

Read the full article here.

I’ve been aware for sometime of a patent describing a FOD detection system written by Hilary Vieira, the patent was eventually passed to a company called Secure Runway Systems corp, who went on to become Diversified Secure Ventures Corp. They issued a press release on 22nd June outlining their wish to build a FOD detection system based on the patent.

The patent basically describes a number of monitoring devices located alongside a runway, where the monitoring device:

includes at least one of a video camera, single-frame camera, infrared camera, high definition camera, Light Detection and Ranging device.

The detection is then done by comparing a baseline image to the current image:

at least one monitoring device generates baseline image data associated with a first condition, generates other image data associated with at least a second condition and the at least one processor compares the image data associated with the conditions to determine whether foreign object debris is present in the at least one runway area (more…)

Just over a week after the Concorde trial in France came to a close it has been announced that Concorde might return to the skies. According to the article at the BBC:

The engines on a French Concorde are to be examined as the first move in a £15m project aiming to get the supersonic passenger jet back in the air.

The article goes on to state:

It is hoped the jet will be able to fly as part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

The verdict from the trial is expected on December 6th .

A friend of mine who’s currently working for the British Antarctic Survey read my recent post regarding the Tarsier system and its performance in snow. So he sent me a picture he’d taken at the SkyBlu Logistics Facility.

The blue ice runway is groomed by the camp staff using commercial lightweight snow ploughs and blowers (which could be shipped in by Dash 7 aircraft). When the wind is favourable, and the conditions good, a runway 1.2 km in length and 50 m wide is possible. However, operations are often hampered by much lighter winds causing knee high snow drifts which reduce contrast. The runway is marked by flags and large colourful bin bags to improve contrast for approaching planes.

Given the fact that they’re using bin bags to improve the contrast for pilots, I think they probably have a few key items to purchase before splashing out on a FOD detection system!

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