G-PETS
 

I'm curious...
G-PETS an Diamond Twin-Star has been sitting at Mazar i Sharif here in Afghanistan for at least a couple of months... Each time I land there it catches my eye as it looks so out of place amongst the NATO and military hardware... it has a number of stickers on it which might indicate that it went pear-shaped on a sponsored round the world trip maybe..
Anyone have any answers ?

I don't know, but a quick google suggests that that aircraft belongs to a company with a fleet of DA42s used for a mixture of slightlyV-IP transport, and surveying work. They also have a contract with MoD to provide low cost ISTARs support to military training exercises (http://www.dosystems.com/training/aerial-istar).

In Afghanistan, my money would be on it being used for surveying work of some description, as I can't see that being the right asset for ISTAR work in the particular theatre, and VIPs over there tend to be flying in something rather more robust!

G

The less said about it the better.

There is no doubt that GCHQ & the NSA are reading & watching this thread closely...........

Be careful they know where you are.

Oh, that's good to hear, would you have a telephone number for me to call them on? When I'm up in the air I rarely know where I am......:p

http://media.scmagazineuk.com/images...h=320&mode=pad


Be careful they know where you are.

I believe that the same company does navaid and instrument approach calibration as well, so it's presence may not be as mysterious as you think.


MJ:ok:

It's come all the way from Retford in Nottingham. Owned by Diamond Executive Aviation its mission is no more exciting than ILS calibration and navaid checking.

SGC

Thanks for the input guys.. appreciated.. 2 months plus would appear to be an excessive period of time to check out the five ILS's currently functioning here in Afghanland and as for anything secret, that's very unlikely .. that's what we do and it's not that simple.. In light of what's been written here it's possible that it might be assisting with calibration of the new radar installed at Mes over the last couple of months... If I was a cynic.. which I am..I'd suspect that they're dragging it out so as to spend more time chatting up the stunningly pretty German lady in the tower.

I contacted the Mods, but the Thread is still here so I assume that the DA42 operations are no longer classified.

Indeed - it might be checking the ILS, but more likely to be carrying out (secret) covert surveillance operations, as it has already done in Iraq and other theatres recently. DO Systems utilise both manned and unmanned versions of the DA42, so it would be interesting to know which one this is?

Left field opinion would be it's been looking/on standby for any information regarding MH370. Two months is about right.

This forum can be utterly priceless at times. Notwithstanding the 11,000 plus posts ranging from the bizarre, to totally incredulous spoutings on the MH370 thread, we now possibly have a standby DA42 sitting in Afghan awaiting the word.

Rock and roll guys, rock and roll:eek:

Sorry to break the illusion, but it was only doing calibration work in Iraq.

Covert surveillance in Afghanistan using a civil registered DA42? Which is then parked in full view of visiting aircraft to be gossiped about on the interweb.

Along with the MH370 conspiracy theory, and the possibility that PPrune mods have some magic way of knowing what is, or is not, an official military secret?

More unlikely things have happened I suppose, but not much.


It'll be doing some variation on calibration / unimportant person transport / surveying work, because that is the only faintly feasible reason to have such an aircraft there.

G

You're right - I got the info off the internet, put two and two together and got five!!!

Obviously the DA42 was flown from the UK to Afghanistan to calibrate the ILS.

Quote:

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Obviously the DA42 was flown from the UK to Afghanistan to calibrate the ILS.

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Pretty unlikely... The FAA have a Challenger out here on a fairly regular basis to do that..
As I said earlier.. Mes has just recently had a whole new radar system installed..along with a new tower.. they're very proud of it...
It was most likely being used for calibrating that system.

Surveillance monitoring is carried out by altogether different types of aircraft both manned and unmanned.. The manned require a minimum crew and a range of equipment that the Twin Star could not possibly accommodate.

From the archives.

RAF buys spy planes to monitor enemies from the sky [Archive] - PPRuNe Forums

Sensors aboard DA42 MPP GUARDIAN

The DA42 MPP GUARDIAN is fitted with a mission-specific turret and airborne computer, and carries a variety of sensors which can be loaded and unloaded with ease.
The universal nose of the DA42 MPP GUARDIAN can be installed with electro optic / infrared (EO/IR) cameras, high-definition (HD) cameras, laser scanner, and air monitoring sensors.
The DA42 MPP achieves a peak range of distance at 1,452km and a maximum altitude of 5,486m. It has a maximum endurance of 12 hours."
Data transmission systems such as EnerLinksIII, dVMO, Helicoder III, SOLO H.264, FM Datalink, and SCOTTY SATCOM are also accepted on this aircraft.
The underfloor pod can be installed with Telephonics RDR-1700B maritime search radar, Selex PicoSAR Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, Seaspray 5000E multi-mode surveillance radar, Thales I-Master radar system, and airborne COMINT system. The belly and nose pods can house mapping and geographic information systems (GIS).

It wasn't me, I never said nothing guv!

Obviously, just sitting in full view, calibrating that's what it is.

Maybe on a touring trip from the UK? Long way to go though, from the UK that is.

Nar, just touring ...

Things are far worse than we could ever have imagined:confused:

Mystery solved...