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Monitoring the airfield under the watchful eye of Merlin

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Richard Williams
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) --  The airfield managers here have a new tool in the arsenal to help aircraft here avoid birds and other wildlife while taking off or landing.

This tool, known as the "Merlin" system, is a portable or movable radar system based on marine radar technology that can be purchased off the shelf, said Ron Merritt, the president of DeTech Incorporated.

"It is the same type of system you see on fishing boats and commercial cruise liners," Mr. Merritt said. "It is a standard marine radar system that is optimized and processed to detect birds and other living things in the atmosphere."

Though the Merlin system is employed at various home station locations; this is the first system to be installed in a combat zone, Mr. Merritt said.

"It is interesting to have it deployed in a combat zone, because the mission tempo and mission requirements are such that there is an urgency here we do not see in the stateside locations," he said.

"When the Air Force (BASH) team and the (USDA) pointed to Bagram as a place to use this system in a combat scenario, it suggested you obviously have a bird strike issue here, and that is not a good thing because you can't accomplish the mission if you can't get off the ground."

Mr. Merritt has been involved with the Air Force Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard program since the late 1980s, and has really noticed the advancements and innovations used to protect aircraft and aircrews from this threat.

He said one of the biggest advantages to the system is its real-time, constant recording of data, and the range and distance at which the system can see and track potential hazards to the airfield.

"The reason we use radar verses just standing outside and looking at binoculars is radar can see a target 15 or 20 miles away," he said. "It is also constantly looking, and it doesn't get tired. It can see in the dark and it can see inclement weather."

Mr. Merritt said the system is fairly simple.
 
A vertically and horizontally spinning S-band radar tracks movement on and in the sky around the airfield. The data is then fed into a computer system which calculates height and distance of any birds in the area, allowing air traffic control to notify the aircrews of a potential hazard in the area.

"It is also used as a data collection tool, allowing the collection of migratory data," he said. "This can potentially allow units to schedule take-off and landing times around known bird movements, even if a take-off time is adjusted by five or ten minutes."

Since it is a fairly inexpensive system, Mr. Merritt said, if the Air Force can save one aircraft engine and the lives of aircrews, then the system has paid for itself.

"Our goal here is to lower the total number of BASH incidents," said Tech. Sgt. Sean Wakeman, a member of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing safety office. "We want our air traffic controllers to have this tool to find possible bird concentrations so our aircraft can avoid these areas."

Sergeant Wakeman said the ability to identify potential threats and avoid them is as important as saving the money and work hours it takes to clean up and repair aircraft once they have hit a bird.

"We have been able to reduce the number of bird strikes greatly from the same time last year through conventional means," Sergeant Wakeman said. "But the number is still not enough."

Mr. Merritt said this system helps give Airmen the ability to make an educated risk management assessment as to mission requirements verses potential risk to aircraft and aircrew, and that information can be vital to a successful mission here.

"You do not want to launch an aircraft into a flock of 250 snow geese the same as you wouldn't launch an aircraft if there were a truck parked in the middle of the runway," Mr. Merritt said.

Because of the mission here, Mr. Merritt said there may be times when aircraft and aircrews may not be able to delay.

"But, we are giving the pilots and the ground crews a little more atmospheric awareness, and that is important," he said.