Charleston Air Force Base continued...

North Auxiliary Field (NAF) is located in the midlands region of South Carolina. The primary concern at NAF is white tailed deer. The swampy woodland location provides the perfect habitat for deer and there is a significant deer population living on and around the airfield increasing the risk of incursion between deer and aircraft.  We have implemented an extensive deer control program including:

u use of border collies specially trained to chase deer

u patrols with border collies to mark territories to deter deer presence

u passive deer deterrents

u habitat modification recommendations: regular mowing, clearing of brush and other areas where deer were bedding down

u recommended changes to the existing hunting program to promote long term deer management

u targeted depredation of does by Flyaway Farm and Kennels' personnel to augment the hunting program and manage population size

 

Flyaway Farm and Kennels provides a complete wildlife control package for both Charleston AFB facilities with wildlife biologists on staff working with professionally trained dogs. 

Q We have provided detailed low-level route analyses to Charleston AFB Flight Safety Office to help them decrease the risk of a damaging bird strike on training flights.  We flew these low level routes with members of the flight safety office and identified high risk areas based on land use and habitat type.  Combining this information with bird migration patterns, we were able to set out time periods when there was a higher risk for a bird strike in specific areas and make altitude and speed restriction recommendations for these areas. 

Q We also encouraged utilization of available information from AHAS (Avian Hazard Advisory System) in pre-flight planning.

Q We narrowed their Phase II window to more accurately reflect local high bird activity conditions, particularly at Charleston.

Q We have helped them greatly increase the reporting and species identification of birdstrikes, allowing us to customize their BASH program to their needs.  

All of this was incorporated into their BASH plan and by focusing Phase II restrictions on certain areas for narrower windows of time it allowed Charleston to increase training time by 45% without increasing the number of damaging bird strikes.