Some time back, one of the forum members posted that birds were
pooping on his 'Coupe, and sought a way to keep them off. My 'Coupe
is tied down outside and had the same problem: our coastal area's
birds seem to particularly like perching on the top of the rudders
and making a mess down on the elevator. I've finally devised an easy
& inexpensive device that seems effective in keeping them off:
I took a length of ordinary foam pipe insulation (the kind that has
a pre-cut slit along one side and costs about 97 cents) and cut ~1'
lengths. I took 2 of those, opened up the slit, and pushed some
stainless steel wire nails through at various angles *from the inside
to the outside*, so that the nails point up and out when the
insulation piece is horizontal. The nails make a sharp & bristly
inhospitable surface when the length of foam is pushed onto the top
of the rudder/vertical stabilizer via the slit.
To keep the foam piece on at our windy airport, I used exterior-
grade heavy-duty Romex (coated electrical wire) to form a sort of zig-
zag clamp over the top of each piece, and extending down the sides of
the vertical stab. Caution: most Romex tries to return to straight
& will not hold a shape, however lengths of the exterior grade can be
formed like giant pipe cleaners to hold a shape, and can be bent to
hold the foam-nail assembly onto the top of the vertical stab/
rudder. The tips of each Romex "clamp" should be bent back or tool-
dipped to avoid the wires inside the Romex scratching the plane's paint.
After a week or so, I did notice that one of these homemade bird
barriers did have some pecking marks in the foam, presumably from an
evicted & disgruntled bird, but after that, they've left it alone.
Total construction costs were about $5 and 5 minutes, so if they
eventually disintegrate, they're easily replaced. Removing and
replacing them gets added to my pre-flight and post-flight checklists.
Linda
N3437H (Sky Sprite)
L.A.
