| Press Releases | Media Clippings |
January 2009
PRESS RELEASE
When
the engineering team at Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc. originally developed its sophisticated tracking radars to detect small,
maneuvering, uncooperative targets, the targets they had in mind were small,
fast boats and low-flying aircraft used by terrorists and smugglers. Then, in 2003, visionary US Navy scientists
seeking better radar solutions for tracking birds at Navy airfields became
aware of Accipiter’s high-performance and cost-effectiveness and made the
connection that “small, maneuvering and uncooperative” described birds as well
as it did terrorists.
The
use of the Accipiter Avian Radar in the United States was pioneered by the US
Navy and has since been installed at Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force bases
from Alaska to the Carolinas including Elmendorf Air Force Base where a tragic
crash due to a bird strike with a flock of Canada Geese killed an entire crew
of 24 in 1995 and raised awareness of the risks of bird-aircraft collisions.
The
high-profile crash of US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River on January
15th has attracted public interest in the risks of bird strikes to
aircraft and generated dozens of articles in the press about new initiatives
and methods that may be used to reduce the risk. What has been greatly under reported is that
experts in this area worldwide have recognized and monitored this risk for many
years and have been energetically and diligently developing methods and
equipment to address the issue.
For
more than two years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) through its William J. Hughes Technical Center in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, has been carrying out the largest and most
significant trial of bird radars ever conducted. The FAA selected the
Accipiter® Avian Radar for this trial. Currently, three Accipiter® Avian
Radar systems are operational at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, three
deployed at Chicago O'Hare, and three in the process of being delivered to John
F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) (operated by the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey). As an
expansion of the nation-wide trial, Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc. has
recently received a further contract by the FAA to deliver an operations center
component for integrating these radars coast-to-coast. The FAA program is
being carried out by the FAA's Center of Excellence for Airport Technology at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Development of avian radar
systems is continuing at a rapid pace at Accipiter’s R&D facility in
Pelham, Ontario, Canada. The Accipiter® system already permits seamless
integration of multiple radars into a single display to cover large areas and remote
control and viewing from any location with network access. The development team
will continue to introduce new features driven by specific needs of the
wildlife control personnel who use the systems to improve aviation safety.
“We, at Accipiter Radar, have
great respect for the challenging work done by wildlife control, air operators,
and safety personnel at airports worldwide, and are proud to be able to assist
them with the development of new radar based tools” commented Dr Tim Nohara, President & CEO.
About Accipiter Radar Technologies
Inc.:
Accipiter
Radar Technologies Inc. offers the world’s
most advanced, tracking surveillance radars using affordable PC-based
processing to the Homeland Security and Aviation Safety markets
worldwide. The Accipiter® product family encompasses the complete wide-area
radar surveillance solution including target data acquisition, storage,
management, analysis, distribution and visualization. Accipiter has won the
business of the world’s most demanding customers including the US Dept. of
Homeland Security, the US Federal Aviation Administration, every branch of the
US military and law enforcement agencies on both sides of the US/Canada border.
Accipiter
is a subsidiary of the experienced and respected Canadian defence contractor,
Sicom Systems Ltd. and boasts one of the top radar engineering teams in North
America with over 175 combined years of military radar development experience. Accipiter’s corporate headquarters is located in
the Town of Pelham in the Niagara Region of Ontario.
Pelham, Ontario
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For further information please contact:
Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc. – a Sicom Company
Tel: (905) 228-6888
Fax: (905) 892-2249