[ Mechanical noises ]

Six nine zero seven zero, you're clear to Toronto.

I'm driving around looking to see where potentially there could be issues with birds, if it's rained looking to see if there are birds that have come closer to the runway potentially looking for earthworms or something like that. Our airport is massive. It's over 7,000 acres. There's a variety of habitats that could be attractive to birds. Birds and aircraft just don't mix, so we want to prevent birds from coming to the airport in the first place.

[ Mechanical noises ]

I've had them go off the windshield of the aircraft. I've had them go off the wings of the aircraft, off the fusilage of the aircraft. It's usually a non-event. But the worst case scenario is if you ingested large birds through both engines as what happened with U.S. Airways on the Hudson River.

Universal praise tonight for the U.S. Airways pilot who pulled off a flawless landing in the icy Hudson River.

Something like weather we can usually avoid, but birds, birds are, I'd say chaotic.

[ Music ]

I'm sure everyone has seen a picture or two of a crow sitting on the scarecrow. After a while, once they realize it's not a true predator, it's no longer effective. But if birds know that there's a predator chasing them, they start to leave the area and they don't come back to that same area.

[ Music ]

The Robird is a robotic falcon, so it is a flapping wing drone. But what it does is it actually looks like a peregrine falcon. It flaps its wings just like a real bird would, and that is it's form of function. So literally a robotic bird. There's a lot of techniques that are used for dealing with birds at airports, everything from loud explosive pops or you're using what they call screamers.

[ Screaming noise ]

Dogs have been used to scare birds up off the ground. So there's a really large toolbox of techniques, and each species responds differently. The difference with the Robird is you're tying into their natural instincts to get away from predators.

[ Music ]

Peregrine falcon spans the globe and is the most well-known falcon in the world. Because of that, birds all over the world also recognize it as a predator, and so they're more likely to respond the way it would to a natural predator. You actually have to think like a predator. You have to think like a falcon because you're hunting birds. We're not doing anything more than chasing them, but birds are eratic. You have to be more eratic attacking them, getting into the middle of the flock. That behavior is what really, really starts to startle them because you're acting just like the predators would. The pilot is focusing on flying and attacking. The observer really supports them in understanding where the birds are, which direction they need to head, keeping an eye on the airspace.

[ Music ]

The goal is to keep birds out of harm's way. So generationally, even if the next generation comes through, they go, well, I don't know why I don't go there, but my parents didn't, my grandparents didn't, so we're going to go in another direction and land a few miles away. If you can start to change where they nest, where they feed, where they rest, then future generations the likelihood is they'll stay away as well. What we're doing here with the Edmonton International Airport is a three-month trial project. It's the first time a Robird has flown in a commercial airport and this is the first time that commercially an airport has allowed UAV and drone operations on a day-to-day basis. Maybe on the way back we'll see if those crows decided to come back. Ok. Perfect. Airports are very hesitant because there's a risk between manned aviation and unmanned aviation. A lot of regulators just go no, no drones because of the risk. The difference here is that we are professional operators. We've gone through a series of scrutinized inspections, reviews, and rules and regulations. Because the Robird is robotic, because it's controlled and has a whole bunch of redundancy built in, we decrease that risk of the tool becoming a hazard itself, and we are showing that there is a way to fly at airports.

I hate to say it, but it's almost a fact of life that you are probably going to hit birds at some time in your career. It's just a matter of how you can mitigate that. That's the most important part. And whether that is through the Robird or whatever other procedures that the airport does, it's extremely important.

[ Music ]

[ Mechanical sounds ]