[Editor's Note: Greg Winfield owns, and Chris Pollach works for, the company that produces the AIRMAN product described in this article.]
When most people think about potential threats to aircraft, the first thing that comes to mind is terrorism. In fact, there is a far more ominous danger lurking out there that has a higher probability of damaging aircraft than any malicious individual or group. This threat lives at airports and never gets caught by airport security. We're referring, of course, to wildlife, especially birds.
A small bird can cause an airplane to crash. If you're a skeptic, here's a quick physics lesson. Take a baseball: by itself it doesn't weigh very much, but if it's traveling at 100 miles per hour, you'd be inclined to duck, or you'd wind up with a nasty bruise. Double the speed of the ball to 200 mph, and if your ducking hasn't improved considerably then you'll probably be visiting the local hospital emergency room. Consider that birds can weigh many times more than a baseball; if the bird is going 300 mph, anything in its path is going to be in a world of hurt. Of course birds don't go 300 mph, but airplanes around airports do, so the energy of the impact remains the same. Such an impact is a real danger, and can result in a loss of engine(s), severing of fuel or hydraulic lines, smashed windshields, and loss of control. However, we're only considering a single bird: remember that many birds like to travel together in flocks. This is not a winning scenario for either the birds or the airplanes. It sounds like a movie Alfred Hitchcock could have made!
Both these aircraft landed safely, but birds pose a real danger to aircraft.
Real costs
Typically, when an airplane jet engine is damaged, an airline can expect to shell out an average of $1,000,000 (considering down time, parts replacements, maintenance fees, and a substitute airplane for the displaced passengers). For this reason, many major airports employ staff or contractors whose sole purpose is to deter birds and mammals away from the critical flight areas around the airport. These areas include the runway and approach/departure corridors. In order for these people to do their job effectively, they need to know which species they are dealing with, when that species shows up, why they do, and what techniques work best to disperse them. Not only must they have an in-depth knowledge of wildlife control, they must record everything they see and be able to retrieve that data in order to analyze it and take the necessary corrective steps.
This is where AIRMAN (http://www.winfieldsolutions.com) comes in. It stands for "Airport Information Report Manager" and one of its primary functions is to store and analyze wildlife data. Running the program from a desktop is great for a manager, but proved less helpful for people in the field. Field employees had to record their daily activities on a sheet of paper and then transcribe all that data into their computer at the end of the day. For this reason, it seemed better to provide the users in the field with a mobile solution where they can record as they go and then sync the recorded information to a server later.
Results
The first airport to use AIRMAN Mobile was Falcon Environmental Services Inc, the wildlife contractor at John F. Kennedy International Airport. After the first day of use, Falcon manager Stuart Rossell noticed an important difference: more data about wildlife was being collected. Observations which historically were never recorded due to the sheer volume of data they represented were now being counted. It was clear to him that the program had given mobile employees the tools they needed to do things better and still operate within their budgeted man hours. Additionally, eliminating paper cut out potential transcribing errors: not only was there more data, it was more accurate.
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