A Drone Solution for the Birds

We all know that birds pose the real threat to aircraft, despite the media hype to the contrary.  The infamous drone danger study incidentally pointed out that in the contest of actually airplane accidents, birds are the winner by millions.

Not to worry.  There’s a drone for that.

Apparently, drones have been used for bird control for years.  Bird-X’s BirdXPeller® Remote Control Drone, pictured left, is a “sonic bird repeller and remote-controlled predator replica in one.” This little remote-controlled number gives birds a “terrifying visual scare” combined with audio recordings of predator birds and the distress calls of geese and others, to convince birds to fly elsewhere.

And now, there is an even more high tech solution; Bird-X announces an anti-bird ProHawk drone, which the company claims is the first drone of its class made specifically for bird control. The ProHawk™ UAV combines a sonic bird repeller with the latest in drone technology.

“After an extensive period of research and development, the testing phase is finally complete and the new drone is available for sale,” stated Dennis Tilles, President of Bird-X, said in a company statement.

The ProHawk anti-bird drone allows the operator to set a GPS flight path with the included software, selecting the altitude, distance; the autonomous flight feature minimizes the man hours required for typical bird control. The unit can also be controlled with a remote control.

Birds are repelled by the unit thanks to a sonic sound unit built directly into the unit, terrifying birds with Bird-X’s naturally recorded, proprietary combination of predator calls and prey bird distress cries, as well as Canada goose cries, making this the most effective device on the market. In addition, the unit creates a terrifying physical presence to pest birds further mimicking a predator bird in order to keep birds from creating dangerous situations.

Mr. Tilles added, “We’ve all seen drones in the news with uses ranging from surveillance to package delivery. We’ve been using drones for years to keep birds out of unwanted areas, but never before has something this advanced been developed exclusively for the purpose of bird control.”

It would seem to be a brilliant solution for airports trying to keep birds away from passenger aircraft – if only the drones themselves could be integrated into the flight plans.