Amazon delivery drone problems: Birds will attack..
Remember the little story on the Amazon drone delivery concept? I referenced a humorous post on this two weeks ago. Well, here is another great attack (pun intended!) on the Amazon drone-delivery concept, this one from Slate and posted Dec.5, 2013.
It’s a great post – and includes some real bird attack videos! Be sure to check out the link! Here is a portion of the story; read all of it at the link above.
Birds already cause a lot of problems for other things in the airspace. The FAA has tracked more than 121,000 instances of bird-aircraft collisions since 1990. These are accidental; the birds—most frequently gulls or pigeons, or in the case of the plane that landed on the Hudson River, Canada geese—are spooked off a runway during takeoff or landing.
The difference for Amazon’s drones is that the birds will be chasing them. Unseen to us, the skies are checkered with fiercely defended bird territories. Open-country raptors—hawks, eagles, kites, harriers, etc.—don’t take kindly to interlopers on their hunting grounds, and frequently chase, dive-bomb, and take talons to intruders. The confrontations can be even more violent during nesting season when vulnerable chicks are potential prey.
Smaller birds also bravely shoo away potential threats, including raptors. Kingbirds are most famous for this behavior and can sometimes be seen riding the backs of much larger birds, escorting them out of the area. It’s impressive behavior when seen from below—an aerial David and Goliath—and it’s common among open-country species, either solo or in pairs, like the kingbirds, or in huge flocks.
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