ABIW
As briefly as I can:
It was a simple mod – just about a plug and play with simple interfaces – the 47D avionics were designed with such systems in mind – I do not believe that the HC2 would have been different in this respect – why don’t you ask around about this system? – when it was first fitted, what was involved, etc? – then you can enlighten us all.
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It could have been fitted immediately before the flight: work was done on the nav racks but no paper (F700) had been raised;
Regarding your comment << I will bet my right arm that if ANY of the groundcrew had kown of this it WOULD have come out by now >>,
Well I rather think some recent posts by others have answered that one – now, who was that regular PPRuNer who has a chain saw?
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What you did not ask but which is surely also relevant is “why was the equipment not found in the wreckage?”:
I have answered this before in past posts but briefly here goes:
The nav racks must have been reasonably intact as the SuperTANS was recovered in such a condition that data was retrievable from it;
The site was insecure for at least 40 minutes after the crash (I have this directly from the police);
When challenged, by UK authorities when they did get to the site, as to why they were on the site, one American said that they were looking for their equipment;
There was a report (for which I have been unable to get confirmation or, in fact, any explanation from anyone) that the (RAF?) SIB had become aware of anomalies in the wiring (such that they were going to charge some technicians?) which I believe may point to the hurried/ inexpert removal of the module – wouldn’t it be nice if someone would come up and explain what this was all about?
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Regarding your comment on the time taken to plan such a trial and the lack of knowledge of it amongst << family, close friends or colleagues of the crew >>: even the crew would not have had to be aware of it that much in advance and I am sure that a “need to know” approach was and is the norm on all operations. If you are at all familiar with the operational use of this equipment, you would understand that it would be no big deal to do an ad hoc trial with it – it is intrinsically reliable and accurate when used properly with the added safeguard that the person on the ground can talk the helicopter in as it approaches – however, it is very, very easy to misuse it, intentionally or accidentally (for example, if the operator on the ground was ½ a mile or so further up the hill than he was expected, by the aircrew, to be). Let’s think about a hypothetical situation: given that these systems were in use in other NATO countries long before the UK (particularly the US) an intelligence person who had had dealings with one of those countries (say, an MI6 man – overseas and all that) and was familiar with much of their equipment and operations could have seen the opportunity for an ad hoc trial of this particular system, knowing it was big feature of the HC2 and that there were personnel in the Mull area who were experienced in its use and had sets issued almost to a man – he wouldn’t have had to have been Einstein, it was really very obvious what could be done – it would have been easy to “sell” the idea to the team on board as the system would have been useful to some of their operations in the future.
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You wrote<< I could go on asking questions you will never ever be able to answer convincingly>>
I came to this site for answers, not to give them – I have presented (to the best of my ability) a theory that fits all that is known publicly and is reasonable to assume from the available data so far and, if correct, has such serious connotations that it should be explored thoroughly – I was hoping that the presentation of this theory would act as a catalyst to people who may not have thought of this aspect and who would then realise that they had useful input in either putting the theory to bed or exploring it further. I sincerely hope that I can be convincingly proven wrong – the world would be a better place.