Keeping Birds Off Warbirds - Methods? - F-4 Phantom

[Rauhbatz]

I know Im going to get lots of creative feedback on this question...

Upon arriving for session #2 today to primer the KVTA F-4 Phantom, we noticed that our friendly birds ignored our powerwashing job and rained poop all down the vertical stabilizer. Before we proceed further, we need a method to keep birds away from the vert stab...

A few ideas we have heard about include:

+ Put a fake owl on top of the stab

+ Fasten spikes to the top of the stab

Any non-invasive methods are welcome...

[tom d. friedman]

try a bobble head owl, his head moves with the wind etc. it's always moving.

[The Inspector]

The Washington State Ferry System uses sort of 'combs' of very long (like a foot or more long) and very numerous stainless steel wires to keep 'Dumpster Ducks' (Sea Gulls) from sitting on railings, buildings, and public access areas of all the ferry docks on Puget Sound, mental picture of an extreme punk mohawk.

I remember reading years ago about a PB4Y pilot @ N.A.S. Whidbey who ran thumbtacks using tape up across the tip of his airplanes vertical tail.

Plastic owls don't work very long, the birds (especially crows who are exceptionally smart) figure it out and put the plastic 'owl' on 'full ignore'. We discovered that while trying to keep English Starlings and their messy nests out of a hanger, never saw a bird so small that could produce that much poo endlessly, and Starlings travel in flocks of hundreds to thousands, just watch a large tree at sunset and see how many all land in it.

Check with your local Co-Op to see what they have as effective anti bird defenses. You need something that interferes with the birds ability to flare and land or take off by crowding their wingspans.

[shrike]

Pima uses spikey pigeon guards to (try to) keep the airplanes bird free.
Try here http://www.birdguard.com/ - the clear polycarbonate ones would be least intrusive, altho' with the stainless ones it could be fun to listen to know-it all passersby explain how the spiked antenna arrays were there to spoof SAMs<G>

[jamesintucson]

Yes we do use the spikes at Pima. They work far better than any other solution. Just make sure you get the stainless steel kind and not plastic. The plastic ones fall apart after a couple of years in the sun. Putting up the spikes drastically reduced our pigeon population which also reduced the number of owls and hawks that were eating them.

James

[Rauhbatz]

Thanks for the helpful steer on the owls and the spikes. May try the owls on the hangar next to the F-4 and go with the spikes for the vertical stab.

Absolutely spot on about our cute friends the starlings....almost thought we would have to resort to flares and chaff as countermeasures!

[ZRX61]

22LR

[whistlingdeath77]

boats at marinas use a rotating cross type of thing. when the wind blows it will spin around like a helicopter knocking any birds off. you can find it at overtons.com