Smack in the middle of a major East Coast avian migration route, Dover AFB, Del., is a choice spot for testing a new, advanced technology radar in the ongoing effort to forestall bird strikes on aircraft. Air Force Safety Center’s Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard, or BASH, officials will use a 2006 Merlin XS2530 bird radar built by DeTect Inc., to find and track birds in a six mile horizontal and vertical radius. Dover’s BASH contractor Karen Voltura said that the base sustains an average of 25 bird strikes each year. Ron Merritt, former BASH team chief and now president of DeTect Inc., noted that the radar displays will make control actions by bird control teams more effective and provide air traffic controllers with real-time advisories for flying crews.
The Air Force’s nascent KC-Z program, aimed at developing a next-generation family of systems for aerial refueling, will look to launch its analysis-of-alternatives study in 2024, years earlier than originally planned. Originally, the analysis of alternatives for KC-Z was set for “maybe in the 2030s,” Paul Waugh, program executive officer…