Airside operations
Drones are a potential game changer for airport operations, capable of carrying out all manner of tasks faster than any ground-based human team. Nicholas Kenny hears from Paul Diestelkamp, head of business development and solutions at Air Navigation Solutions, and Myron Keehn, vice-president of air service and business development at Edmonton International Airport, about the challenges airports face in integrating this technology, and how can they build an effective operating framework for the future.
s it a bird? Is it a plane? In this case, it’s actually a bit of both. Since 2017, the local wildlife around Edmonton International Airport (EIA) have kept an eye out for a new kind of threat, scanning the skies for shadow patrolling above them.
The sky’s the limit I
It looks just like a peregrine falcon, but this one is far easier for EIA’s operators to control. Its flight behaviour mimics that of an actual bird, making it indistinguishable from its natural counterpart to such an extent that other birds see it as a predator, and go to great lengths to avoid it. However, instead of feathers, flesh and bone, this bird is made of paint, metal and wire. “It’s a drone, but it’s also a falcon replica that flaps its wings like a bird,” explains Myron Keehn, vice- president of air service and business development at
Edmonton International Airport (EIA), who first saw the Robird at an air show in Tokyo in 2016. “We started using [the Robird] to do wildlife control to help scale and test it – [before that] we had a real, live falcon at the airport.”
EIA use the Robird to herd flocks of birds away and discourage their return, helping to keep the airport’s airspace clear. While individual birds rarely present much threat to an aircraft, a flock of them can bend or break engine blades. In January 2009, a flock of Canada geese famously disabled both engines of a US Airways jet, resulting in an emergency landing on the Hudson river. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), US civil aircraft suffered 142,000 bird strikes between 1990 and 2013.
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Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
EIA
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