DOVE-FARMING IN THAILAND

(Only a Part of the Article Appears Here)

Bimal K. Srivastava

Thailand is a land of "HAPPY" people. (Literally, since the word ‘THAI’ in local language means 'Free'.). These people are not only decent mannered and ever smiling, but they are helpful and honest too. Moreover Thai people are nature lovers and are fond of music & dance also. That is why almost every shop, restaurant and club can be seen buzzing with stereo or cassette recorders (some people term them as too noisy).

Perhaps this is the reason why Thai people are crazy about keeping a variety of singing birds as pets. As a matter of fact many of the house-holds in Bangkok can be seen having a decorated cage in their house with a bird inside cooing leisurely to a melodious tune. However unlike Indian houses where we may find a parrot, a mynah, a pigeon or even a love bird as pet, these Thai houses keep rather an unconventional bird a " Dove " as pet. This is something where the difference comes, as in India I have yet to see a household keeping a dove in a cage that too for its song.

Divine Melody

Recently when I visited one of my Thai friend's house in Bangkok I found three cages hoisted on tall bamboo poles having one small (about 20 cms long) ash grey coloured dove in each. Since this was morning time, the birds were singing chorus in a manner of almost question-answer session. I was fascinated by the elegance and decor of the sight and I casually asked the price of the birds that my friend might have paid for. The amount quoted was so unbelievable that I had to repeat my question.

My friend replied that he had paid a total of 10,000 Bahts (One Baht = Rs 1.25 approx, as per present rates) for those three doves. The price appeared to be astonishingly high, since a hen or a duck in Bangkok would normally cost somewhere between 50 to 100 Bahts. I therefore became very much inquisitive.

On my further queries my friend replied that this particular variety of doves known as 'Zebra Dove' (geopelia striata) is a very good singer and is a popular pet bird in Thailand. The cost of these singing doves depends upon the quality of their voice that is judged by the pitch, melody and volume of sound they produce. More melodious sound a bird has, more price it fetches in the market. Lowest cost that a singing dove can demand may be around 400 Bahts (Rs 500) (except certain fancy varieties of doves such as white doves which are not singers but are kept as decorative pets, may be available for a lower price of 100 Bahts a piece or so). And for maximum, only sky can be the limit. However it was not uncommon to see a small bird with price tag as high as Bahts 30,000 to 40,000.

I also came to know that at every Sunday morning in early hours, Bangkok turns on one of its most surprising events - the famous 'Sunday morning bird singing concert'. Proud owners bring their singing doves in beautiful cages to perform at an informal concert at any particularly designated park in Bangkok. There are a number of prizes to be won for best singing birds and the event was extremely popular among Thai people.

It was also learnt that not only Bangkok, but almost all the countries in South East Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Hong Kong etc. also hold such contests at some level or other. As a matter of fact, the singing bird contest of Singapore is one of the most popular event of Singapore that is held each Sunday in the heart of the city on a regular basis. This event has even found a place in the tourist brochures and guide books of Singapore.

My friend also informed that there were a number of 'Dove Farms' in and around Bangkok where breeding of doves was conducted on a commercial basis.

I therefore immediately made up my mind to visit one of such dove farms conveniently located at the outskirts of Bangkok (near International Airport).

At The Farm-house

It was a unique opportunity to see a small farm house surrounded by green shrubs with a large number of enclosures full of different kinds of doves.

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, coloured pheasants from Holland, bulbuls and love birds from Malaysia, rare type of long-tailed hens, etc, all kept in spacious enclosures. I was even amazed to see tiny fist sized monkeys imported from South America showing acrobatics in their cages.

The owner, a retired Colonel from Thai Army showed his pride collection with a lot of enthusiasm. This was disregarding the fact that he had problems in communicating in English, since like most of other Thais, he preferred speaking his own language (with my friend acting as translator).

The Colonel explained..........

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, Malaysia, and Singapore etc (Indonesia accounting for about 80% of exported birds.)

For The Cost of a Song

Inside the lounge of Colonel's farm house, I saw two beautiful cages containing one Zebra dove (Geopelia striata) in each cage. Those birds were cooing occasionally in their sweet voice. I was told that those birds were amongst the most melodious singers of that farm and that they have already been sold out, with one of the customers likely to arrive in a short while. Soon the person came and picked up one of the birds. Since that dove was to be taken on a long journey outside Bangkok, it was force fed and carefully kept inside a perforated cardboard box.

The customer then hurriedly paid a handful of currency notes totally amounting to a staggering 25,000 Bahts (about Rs 31,000) being the honourable price for that tiny creature and then left in his shining Toyota car leaving me in a shocked and bewildered state.

BLACK BOXES (Only A Part of the Article Appears Here)

…… BY BIMAL K. SRIVASTAVA

An Air India B-747 (Jumbo Jet) aircraft while on a flight from Mumbai to Dubai fell into the Arabian sea, two minutes after its take-off from Mumbai. The pilot had not passed any emergency message on Radio and everything appeared to be normal before the accident. So much so , even the pilot had conveyed new years greetings (It was 1st January night) on radio to the Radar Controller on ground a few seconds before crash.

However the accident took place and the Jumbo hit the sea with such an impact that the total aircraft got embedded into sea bottom (The depth of water was hardly 10-15 meters at that place), resulting into a watery burial and sudden death for all the 213 occupants of the ill fated aircraft. Unfortunately, since it was a winter night, there were hardly any witnesses to the mishap.

Finally Indian Navy and the local fishermen were able to search the wreckage (and could retrieve the black boxes) after three days. On re-play of the black boxes it was established that the "Attitude Direction Indicator (ADI)" instrument that provides the information about the attitude of the aircraft (its bank, pitch, direction etc) had failed resulting into disaster.

From the above example it is evident that the black boxes play a very important role in aircraft accident investigation. That is why whenever an aircraft accident occurs, the first and foremost job (of course other than search and rescue) is that to locate the black boxes.

WHAT ARE BLACK BOXES.

The black boxes are special instruments (in the shape of rectangular boxes) which continuously record the flight details and the cockpit conversation during flight. Black boxes are not one but TWO separate instruments known as "Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR)" and "Flight Data Recorder (FDR)" respectively.

CVR and FDR, though entirely separate instruments, yet externally they almost look alike (in shape, size and colour). Moreover, though these instruments are called Black Boxes, they are normally bright red or orange in colour. The name `BLACK BOX' has been given to them, perhaps due to the fact that the information contained inside these units is not known unless and until the unit is played on a special recorder.

These units are contained in strong rectangular metallic boxes which are capable of withstanding high degree of shock and extensive heat arising as a result of aircraft crash (Manufacturers term them as crash-proof). They can also resist heavy rain, fire or any other odd of this nature. The normal size of a black box is 13 X 20 X 30 cms and its weight is about 10 KGs. Thus they are comparable to a brief case in shape and size. Normally these boxes are installed towards the rear portion of the aircraft, as it is believed that this area of the aircraft is less prone to damage during an accident.

Inside the tough boxes, the soft and delicate tape is sheltered that actually performs the important job of recording flight details and cockpit conversation. This tape is either a magnetic tape or a thin metallic foil. It is surprising that even after such heavy impact, fire, extensive heat, or continuous contact with water, the metallic boxes provide a perfect shielding to the vulnerable tape; and normally the recordings do not suffer damage.

The black boxes start functioning as soon as the aircraft engines are started and they stop when all the engines are shut down.

Black boxes are fitted with a typical sound transmitters operated by a special battery, which is known as acoustic underwater locator beacon assembly. This unit is a battery-powered device, which radiates pulsed acoustic signals into the surrounding water upon activation of its water sensitive switch. The beacon consists of a self-contained battery in electronic module and a transducer. The water sensitive switch gets activated whenever it comes in contact with water (either sweet water or saline water).

This may happen in the event of the aircraft falling into sea, lake or river, when the transmitter starts operating and a peculiar "Beep Beep" sound is produced on a regular and continuous basis that can be heard from a distance of 3 kms (of course by means of special receivers). Once `on' the battery continues working for about 30 days. The idea is that that aircraft wreckage even submerged in water can be searched by the help of this sound.

It may be mentioned that the CVR and FDR of Air India Jumbo jet "Kanishka" that had fallen into Irish sea on 23rd June 85, could be located and retrieved from a deep sea-bed of more than 2000 meters by combined efforts of the naval fleets of Canada, Britain, Ireland and France through the help of these sound transmitters, which otherwise would have been impossible to get.

COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER (CVR)

Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) enables in presenting the recorded voice conversation of crewmembers of the aircraft. Its primary purpose is to provide valuable evidence in determining the cause of an aircraft accident, however, it can be used for other purposes also such as Incident Investigation, checking the performance of Crew Members, computing the speed of Engines and Propellers, routine monitoring of aircraft data etc. In India it is mandatory for all turbine-powered aeroplanes of 5700 KGs and above to have CVR fitted.

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The four tracks of the CVR (termed as Channel 1, 2, 3, or 4) record either transmitted or received signals that originate typically at various crewmember stations or that of Area Microphones. Normally Channel 1 record communications received and transmitted on Flight Engineers head set. However in case of the aircraft which do not have Flight Engineer's position such as Boeing 737, A-320 etc., Channel 1 records Cabin Crew communications (including

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For example, in 1974 one Lufthansa B747 aircraft crashed in the Nairobi when its CVR was read out, it was found that the pilot had forgotten to extend the leading edge flaps during take-off check list, and therefore the aircraft could not derive adequate lift causing it to crash. The cause of this accident could be established only because of the CVR Tape transcript.

Similarly when the CVR of the Air India B747 aircraft "Emperor Ashoka' that had crashed near Mumbai on 1-1-78 was played back, the following cockpit conversation was heard:

- "My Instruments are toppled"...(Captain)

- "Mine is also toppled"...(Co-pilot)

- "No but, go by that Captain"...(Flight Engineer)

Due to that it could be later established that the aircraft had crashed due to failure of pilots "Altitude Director Indicator (ADI)" that gives the information about the altitude of the aircraft during Flight

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For example during the investigation of an accident pertaining to an aircraft which was delayed and was departing very late during night, the CVR transcript revealed that the pilot was telling to his co-pilot

"Yaar Mujhe Bahut Neend Aaa rahi hai"

(I am feeling very sleepy)

This clearly showed the mental state of crewmember who was undertaking the flight at such an odd hours.

Similarly sometimes the CVR showed that the crewmembers were in a very light and jovial mood occasionally to the extent of not paying much attention towards the flight. In one of the accident, it was found that the commander who happened to be a close relative of the trainee pilot, also going for his supernumery flight, was so much engrossed in explaining to him the flight procedures, that he almost forgot about many vital points to be observed during the crucial phase of landing. This aircraft ultimately crashed on a hill at a stage when the crewmembers were least aware of the obstruction ahead. On the other hand, many times, the flight crewmembers are found very sincere and they follow all the procedures and checklist thoroughly.

FLIGHT DATA RECORDER (FDR)

The other black boxes viz. FDR records flight details such as aircraft speed, altitude, direction, gravity, and rate of climb/ descent and time. It normally contains a metallic tape on which the information gets permanently engraved by a special probe (like a gramophone needle). Its tape can run for 25 hours of flight and then a new tape is installed.

FDR provides valuable information about the aircraft and its flight. For example the time of accident can be exactly pinpointed. Similarly it can also be known whether speed, altitude of the aircraft were normal or any abnormality was noticed. If, so what could be the cause of that and so on.

In modern aircraft like Jumbo jet (B-747), Airbus, A320 etc. a new type of computerised flight data recorder called Digital Flight Data

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(BIMAL K. SRIVASTAVA)