ISRAEL: The airforce is using bird tracking radar technology to ensure safe aviation

Record ID: 397324

  • Title: ISRAEL: The airforce is using bird tracking radar technology to ensure safe aviation
  • Date: 27th December 2011
  • Summary: YOSSI LESHEM, DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF BIRDS MIGRATION, SITTING WITH CO-WORKER NEAR COMPUTER MONITOR SHOWING MAPPING OF BIRD FLOCKS RECEIVED FROM RADAR BIRD FLOCKS MAPPING AS SEEN ON COMPUTER MONITOR (SOUNDBITE) (English) YOSSI LESHEM, DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF BIRDS MIGRATION AND LECTURER AT TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY D
  • Embargoed: 11th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel, Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Defence / Military,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVA6X3NZC8O5UENUND2LDBC2X3YJ
  • Story Text: The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has placed a specially equipped radar on its northern border as it seeks to prevent collisions between jets and flocks of birds.
    The technology follows extensive research by Yossi Leshem, director of the International Centre for the Study of Birds Migration, and a lecturer at Tel Aviv's University Department of Zoology.
    In the past 25 years ten IAF fighter jets have crashed and many others been involved in collisions with birds, resulting in the death of three pilots.
    The new radar station allows researchers to collect data on bird migration. Twice a year, somewhere between 500 million and one billion birds fly through the Middle East, passing through Israel, on their way from Eurasia to Africa and vice versa.
    The skies over the holy land, a busy junction of bird migration routes connecting Europe, Asia and Africa, are a paradise for bird-lovers but perilous for pilots.
    "We have here 500 million birds, twice a year. One billion birds are flying over Israel," said Leshem. "So the Israeli airforce lost in the last three decades 10 aircraft, crashed, combat aircrafts from birds, 75 collisions with a damage of one million dollar each. So I made them mapping, when are the birds coming and leaving, what height are they flying, which route, and the Israeli airforce made new regulations, they stopped to fly where I told them with the raiders."
    Working in co-operation with the IAF and Tel Aviv University, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel will be able to follow, study, and immediately report the nature and size of flocks approaching Israeli borders.
    Leshem explained how the radar works.
    "This is a weather radar, it was located in Moldavia, and with the funding of the Israeli air force and the Ministry of Defence we diverted the radar from an analogical radar to a digitised radar. And all the information, the wave length is three (metres) and 10 centimetres, so the radar which was developed to identify clouds can identify birds from a distance of 100 kilometres. We can see a stork from 70-100 kilometres from here. So in Central Israel, from Hadera until Beersheba we can monitor all the birds which are flying on the migration."
    Until the station's opening, northern border officers could only receive reports of expected migration patterns. Now they can actually monitor feeds with live data.
    Major Oded, of the IAF's Birds Strike Prevention department, whose full name and occupation is under censorship, says that the data received from the network of radars enables real time warning for pilots to watch out for birds.
    "When we find them, we give warning to the aircrafts, real time warnings about the specific location of the flocks. This is the way we try to prevent from serious accidents to happen," said Major Oded.
    Over the past 20 years the IAF says it has made great strides in reducing collisions with birds, reducing accidents by more than 75 percent since the 1980's.
    Throughout the world, there are more than 250 airplane-bird accidents every year, some of them fatal. According to Leshem, most accidents are caused by fighter jets' high speed. The faster a jet flies and the larger the bird, the more damaging a collision will be.
    Leshem says the air forces of Jordan and Turkey have shown interest in developing a regional network that would enable information sharing on flock movement, although the project is currently on ice due to tense relations between Israel and Turkey.
    "Because it's such a big success now that we reduced the number of collisions, the radars are doing the most important job in this and the Israeli air force which was famous in the world because of the air combats and success with the enemies, is now leading also with a peaceful project," he said.
    While safety is the main concern, the radars will also provide bird watchers with gaggles of information. Leshem says the radar will help bolster Israel's burgeoning birdwatching industry, an additional bonus.
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