Israel's hoopoe bird, scared by sonic cannon?
Israel's hoopoe bird, scared by sonic cannon?Israel news photo

Israel is putting its scariest military technology on the market, one that can kill a man with sounds waves. Its mild-mannered alter-ego, however, is being used to scare man's feathered friends away from airports.

 

The Jewish State's military industry now plans to market the cutting-edge “bunker buster” weapons technology in the form of a sonic cannon.

 

The science behind the device was introduced years ago for the benign purpose of scaring away birds, by former Soviet researcher Igor Fridman, who made Aliyah in 1991. Similar technologies are used in the U.S. for repelling pesky squirrels.

 

Although the technology itself can be used for a relatively harmless purpose, not so the new sonic cannon, powered by fuel-air explosive technology. It delivers sound rays so powerful that according to a recent report in Defense News, anyone hearing them within 10 meters is instantly killed. The blast that results from the explosive fuel-air combustion process explodes from one end of tubular combustion chamber, which operates much the same as a cannon barrel.



The device resembles its gas-fueled predecessor that was used to keep birds away from airports, agricultural crops and military installations, and is fueled by bottled liquified petroleum gas (LPG). Also known as cooking gas, LPG is comprised of a mixture of hydrocarbon gases used as fuel in heating appliances and vehicles. It is a major energy source in Israel's national economy, and is used in industry and agriculture as well as in the domestic and institutional sectors.

 

The process used in the new "bunker buster" technology, patented as Pulse Detonation Technology (PDT), is much the same as the pulse-detonated fuel-air mixtures used in the Argus “pulse jet” that propelled the “Doodlebug” V-1 cruise missiles used by the Nazis in World War II.

 

Many of Iran's nuclear facilities are buried deep underground in concrete-shielded bunkers, which experts believe will be difficult to target in any military operation. Hizbullah terrorists also hid much of their ordnance and guerrilla manpower in such bunkers during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. They have also spent the past several years training Hamas terrorists in Gaza to do the same.