Unbelievable, isnt it?
I still cant see how the windfarms can create blindspots. They dont move, they are permanent echos. Not to mention the location of the farm is that it would be within the blasted radar overhead anyway. The existing digital AD radars should be able to filter them out.
You're not going to be controlling anything directly near such a site... and incidentally how come the CAA, (if there really is such a problem) hasnt been equally vocal about it?
Because surely if it affects them (as they use radar as well as the military and both rely on each others sensors) and if there is a risk to flight safety then surely we would have heard more about it?
I was speaking to a colleague of mine this morning about it and he recalls a trial in Europe where with a single ATC radar that there were phantom primary and secondary radar plots/tracks generated some distance away from a windfarm, but that was with a single ATC radar, not within areas of overlapping AD radar coverage... there may have been other scenarios, but he was only aware of the one detailed here. But thats not a "hole" in coverage, its what appears to be an inability of the system to process and eliminate false returns. No mention was made of the age of the sensor or any of the processing tools available to its operators, if any.
Cant help but get the feeling that someone is yanking someones chain here and that the episode is turning into a lollipop that licks itself....
"Security Threat by creating blindspots", my @rse.
So, we dont have blindspots following the loss of Saxa Vord and Polestar?
I dont recall anyone badgering for them to be replaced with new sensors that someone else should pay for...
That Tu160 that got to within 20 miles of Hull a couple of years ago.... saw it the whole way, did we?
Pull the other one.
I would like to be proved wrong, but.... given those who are running UKAD at the moment, I somehow doubt it.