Bird strikes present a serious threat to military aircraft. Although class A incidents are rare, bird strikes have the capacity to cause considerable damage to aircraft which can be both expensive and debilitating – keeping aircraft grounded and dysfunctional.

Managing Military Aircraft Bird Strike Prevention

Most bird activity happens in lower airspace, so bird strikes are most likely to occur during take-off, initial climb, and landing. This puts military aircraft at an increased risk than civil aircraft, due to military training and operations often occupying the lower airspace around the airbase.

Plus, as most military aircraft have singular jet engines, the risk of damage through bird ingestion is much higher than in larger aircraft. High-performance military fighters have smaller engines with lower bypass ratios, and  thus are much more likely to experience bird ingestions than their larger, commercial counterparts.

It's estimated that around 16,000 bird strikes occur annually in the US alone. And although fatalities from these strikes are rare, they can cause considerable damage, which can be costly and put the aircraft out of action while it gets repaired. In 2019 this was highlighted by a strike incident involving a F-35 jet. The take-off procedure was aborted due to an unforeseen bird strike, resulting in 2 million dollars worth of damage. 

As well as being a threat to life, bird strikes can incur substantial economic costs. Modern jets are incredibly expensive. Adequate protection and prevention are therefore essential for the military aviation industry.

How to Reduce the Risk of Bird Strikes for Military Aircraft

Upgrade Your Radar Tracking

While many military bases are equipped with modern radar that can identify large flying objects, like foreign aircraft or commercial planes, most lack the ability to track and classify smaller objects such as birds. This can leave aircraft vulnerable to bird strikes, preventing them from taking off, carrying out training, or completing missions. 

Effective bird detection radar helps to mitigate this risk by locating, tracking, and classifying birds before take-off and landing. This removes the need for human observers and gives your base the ability to garner insights and information on bird behaviour. You can then respond to threats quickly, and minimise operational downtime. 

While bird detection radar alone won't eliminate the threat of bird strikes, it's the best place to start, and will provide your control team with the data needed to take action. 

Train & Mobilise Your Aviation Control Team

Establishing and building up actionable data on behaviour, flight paths, and bird movements will give your team the insights they need to prevent bird strikes and improve flight safety. All supported by active surveillance. 

Cataloguing, measuring, and monitoring bird activity on a local level is crucial, so you and your control team can start to build up a bigger picture on and around your base. Without this critical information, deploying deterrence measures and effective habitat measurement isn't effective. Training your team to identify threats is essential. Thankfully, many methods of tracking birds, like radar, are intuitive and easy-to-use.  

The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF) uses multiple bird radars across all of their national air bases, which help to provide a complete picture of activity. This helps their team to improve flight safety and gives controllers better situational awareness to deal with incoming threats. Real-time monitoring like this is pivotal in maintaining military operations and ensuring aircraft can continue functioning smoothly. So, it's worth considering for your own base, if you haven't already.

Be Prepared to to Manage Military Aircraft Bird Strike Prevention

With bird strikes remaining a consistent threat for military aircraft, it's important your base has the situational awareness needed to react and deal with strikes at all times.

Radars for military aviation provide the 24/7 monitoring and tracking tools that help detect and assess potential threats as they occur in real-time.