Mil 17s
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Replacing A109s 'acquired' circa 1982 per chance?
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Look for a post in the 'Aviation Waffle' Thread called 'When serials surprise' and another called something like 'Today at Boscombe'
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Guys,
This is old news - ask the TPs at Boscombe and they will tell you! QinetiQ is tryin g its hardest to keep up with the likes of Robenexport (recently won large contract in Saudia Arabia) etc and therefore wants to have a good look at the 'technology' involved which is resulting in these contracts going the Russian way.
Tie this in with ETPS requiring a different platform than a western design aircraft to allow its students to learn from and critique then I am sure that no one is surprised to find out that this is a purely a commercial venture.
Nothing to see here....move along
This is old news - ask the TPs at Boscombe and they will tell you! QinetiQ is tryin g its hardest to keep up with the likes of Robenexport (recently won large contract in Saudia Arabia) etc and therefore wants to have a good look at the 'technology' involved which is resulting in these contracts going the Russian way.
Tie this in with ETPS requiring a different platform than a western design aircraft to allow its students to learn from and critique then I am sure that no one is surprised to find out that this is a purely a commercial venture.
Nothing to see here....move along
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Originally Posted by mr fish
i heard a while back that the us coastguard wanted rid of their dauphins as they were 'underpowered', are the ones mentioned uprated?
).I/C
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Ranger703... Sorry, I meant generally. Certain areas of the UK yes, but not anywhere. Hence why I thought that a manned platform like the DA42 might not be as restricted as using a UAV would.
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DA42
The DA42's are registered to DO SYSTEMS LTD.
If you do search for it you will come up with the following
http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...rveillance.pdf
If you do search for it you will come up with the following
http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...rveillance.pdf
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The DA42Ms are on the mil register also as ZA179 and ZA180. I'd guess they are for Iraq. Possibly to free up some of the Defenders for Afghanistan.
Some pics of them here:
UK Airshow Review - iB::Topic::When Serials Surprise...
Pics obviously taken pre-conversion to the spec described in the RUSI article.
I reckon they'd be pretty useful in ISTAR role. You could have line of sight video transmission to guys on ground, and also via satellite uplink back to ops. Dirt cheap too (militarily speaking) - you could buy dozens of them and give every ground patrol permanent overhead video cover.
Some pics of them here:
UK Airshow Review - iB::Topic::When Serials Surprise...
Pics obviously taken pre-conversion to the spec described in the RUSI article.
I reckon they'd be pretty useful in ISTAR role. You could have line of sight video transmission to guys on ground, and also via satellite uplink back to ops. Dirt cheap too (militarily speaking) - you could buy dozens of them and give every ground patrol permanent overhead video cover.
Last edited by CirrusF; 22nd Aug 2008 at 10:50.
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Christ guys, I dont even fly anymore and work in the City and even I know what they are there for!
But very interesting all the different ideas and reasons, some very valid!
Surely its obvious.... Putin is buying Westlands!
But very interesting all the different ideas and reasons, some very valid!
Surely its obvious.... Putin is buying Westlands!
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DA42 might not be as restricted as using a UAV would.
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When I meant restricted, I didn't mean by capability. I meant that there would not be the kind of restrictions using the DA42 that would be found operating a UAV over British airspace (eg. a UAV cannot currently operated over the whole of UK airspace but only certain restricted areas) if they have been acquired for some reason to be used over the UK rather than in Afghanistan or Iraq. It's a pity that there doesn't seem to be any recent photos yet of the post-configuration since they went over to the military register that would give a better idea of what they might be used for.
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I'd agree that there are occasions where a "manned UAV" is a lot better than a UAV. The accident rates for UAVs are still higher than for manned aircraft, which offsets their cost-savings. I'm not entirely convinced by the advantage of a DA42 UAV. As you say, there are airspace restrictions on UAVs in most countries, so whereas you could just fly a manned DA42M to theatre, and once in theatre would have more diversion options as you could go to any airfield you like. Getting a UAV DA42 to theatre would be logistically more difficult, then you would be much more restricted in where you could divert the aircraft too partly because of airspace restrictions and partly because (presumably) you would need a pilot on the ground at the diversion to handle the landing (I doubt that could be done remotely).
Also, I'm not convinced that the DA42 is necessarily a good platform for conversion to UAV. Those long, low wings would be a bit vulnerable when trying to land one remotely in a cross-wind (even with a pilot controlling it locally), and detecting then handling an engine failure remotely would be a challenge. However, the surveillance and observation flights I've done mostly involve really chucking the aircraft about to stay in the right location and I can imagine it would be difficult to convert a DA42 to fly (say) low-level steep turns automatically. It would only be worth converting DA42 to UAV if you really had an operational requirement for very long endurance flights, all of which were conducted at mid-level (F150-F180).
Also, I'm not convinced that the DA42 is necessarily a good platform for conversion to UAV. Those long, low wings would be a bit vulnerable when trying to land one remotely in a cross-wind (even with a pilot controlling it locally), and detecting then handling an engine failure remotely would be a challenge. However, the surveillance and observation flights I've done mostly involve really chucking the aircraft about to stay in the right location and I can imagine it would be difficult to convert a DA42 to fly (say) low-level steep turns automatically. It would only be worth converting DA42 to UAV if you really had an operational requirement for very long endurance flights, all of which were conducted at mid-level (F150-F180).
Winch control
Defence Helicopter article in one of their 2004 issues said that RAF crews had been sent to Gremenchko Academy out East (sorry please forgive my poor spelling of that facility) to train on MI-8/17 along with USAF crews
Defence Helicopter article in one of their 2004 issues said that RAF crews had been sent to Gremenchko Academy out East (sorry please forgive my poor spelling of that facility) to train on MI-8/17 along with USAF crews
