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An Israeli innovative system helps the air force to minimize the foreign object damage (FOD) to its aircraft.

The Israeli air force (IAF) has achieved an impressive decrease in foreign object damage (FOD) to its aircraft, after installing special barriers that were developed by a reserve F-16 pilot.

Major (res) Ivri Shapira has started designing the system after he experienced an incident in which stones were sucked into his F-16 I engine.

Airvrix, the company that he formed, has developed special barriers that block any possible FOD to reach the runway.

“Most of the solutions offered today for FOD’s are for the discovery of the objects on the runway and not prevention. Our product is nearly the only product in the world that prevents FOD’s with a cheap and quick technique.”

So far, the special barriers were installed on runways in the “Ramon”, “Nevatim” and “Hatzerim” IAF’s airbases. The largest decrease in engine damage was noted in the “Nevatim” airbase, on the most problematic runways.

According to Airvrix the barriers are elastic, which enables them to ‘collapse’ in the event of an aircraft’s deviation from the runway. Additionally, the Israeli company says the special barriers do not restrict the ability to clean the runway. “They are very resilient in any kind of weather and require very little maintenance”.

Airvrix claims that merely six months after installing the product in three airbases, the data and statistics obtained from “Nevatim” airbase, where the biggest scale installation was made, indicates that there is a reduction of about 80 percent of the FOD damages to the aircrafts.

The company says that installations will continue in Israeli airbases, and that there is a growing interest in the product from many international bodies.