Lasers and giant speakers: How airports chase birds off the runway

Around 360,000 flights land and take off from Singapore's Changi airport each year. 

Yet hardly anyone ever thinks about what it takes to keep the runways clean.

Birds for one, pose a huge problem to most airplanes.

A bird getting sucked into an engine or striking a windscreen could cause a possibly fatal accident — and has in the past forced pilots to make emergency landings or crashes.

In Singapore, the solution lies in the Airside Safety Rover — a vehicle fitted with a long range acoustic device (LRAD), a loudspeaker of sorts that is designed to broadcast sounds to scare away the birds. Read more...