A couple years ago, I wrote a post about wildlife collisions at airports. (Spoiler: they happen and are just as hard on airplanes as they are on cars.)
While reviewing the mishap investigation report covering the crash of CAPT Jeff Kuss, I learned something I didn’t know: the USAF maintains a forecasting system to predict the hazards caused by birds. (The report makes for interesting reading because it’s so thorough. I will have more to say about it in another post.)
Read that first sentence again: you can get a bird forecast. Is this a great country, or what?
All joking aside, you have to look no further than Cactus 1549 (or, as you may know it, “The Miracle on the Hudson”) for proof of why birds and airplanes don’t mix. AHAS gives aviators a simple tool to check an airfield or flight route to see how likely it is to contain bird hazards. For example, if you go there, pick “Huntsville International” as the airport, and click the “AHAS Risk” button, you’ll get a nifty report showing what bird-attracting features are nearby (landfills, golf courses, bodies of water, and so on), as well as a historical list of bird strikes.
I’m not sure that I will be regularly checking AHAS before my routine flights but I suspect I will be checking it before I fly into unfamiliar areas. Those damn birds are sneaky, y’know. A fellow can’t be too careful.
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