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Old 28th April 2008, 10:59 AM
Nigel C Nigel C is offline
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Default AMSA Rescue planes flying without radars

From www.news.com.au

Quote:
Rescue planes flying without radars

By Gary Hughes
April 28, 2008 03:50am


THE federal Government's troubled $200m fleet of specialist search and rescue aircraft is flying without vital search radar after technical problems with the sensitive electronic equipment forced their temporary removal.

The search radar on the five Dornier 328 turbo-prop aircraft operated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which was designed to locate vessels in distress and other objects at sea or on land, has been temporarily replaced with weather radar.

It means the Dorniers have to rely on infra-red cameras and visual scanning during searches.

It is uncertain how long the radar problems will take to fix.

The radar failure is the latest in a series of mechanical problems to have plagued the Dorniers since they took to the air in October 2005.

The Australian revealed in January that the Dorniers had experienced half a dozen mid-air mechanical incidents last year, including four engine failures.

Other mechanical problems, spare part shortages and the need for modifications have led to aircraft being frequently grounded and unable to respond to emergency calls.

All five Dorniers were grounded on January 26.

AMSA spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins confirmed the latest mechanical set back, blaming it on "initial stability problems" with the search radar.

"AMSA is currently working with the manufacturers and system integrator of the radar system to identify and rectify the stability problems," she said.

"The search radar antenna has been temporarily replaced with a weather radar antenna to allow the aircraft to continue to fly in all weather conditions."

Ms Jiggins said infra-red cameras on the Dorniers still enabled them to "locate and identify people in distress during day and night operations".

"There is no search and rescue limitation to the aircraft while the radar issues are being addressed," she said.

"This is the first time AMSA have had aircraft fitted with radar and while problems are being overcome, AMSA has access to other radar equipped aircraft if and when necessary."

Aviation industry sources say the effectiveness of the search radar on the Dorniers was already compromised before the latest problems because of the way it was mounted in the nose.

By being in the nose, the radar is capable only of sweeping an area of 70 degrees ahead of the aircraft, leaving it "radar blind" for the remaining 290degrees.

Most other search and rescue or surveillance aircraft used around the world are fitted with belly-mounted radar, allowing a full 360-degree sweep.

The confined space in the Dornier nose also limits the size of the search radar antenna that can be fitted, restricting its effective range to about half that of similar aircraft.

Industry sources said while the Dorniers were slightly faster than other similar turbo-props, such as the Dash 8 aircraft used by Coastwatch, they could not remain in a search area for as long before needing to return to base to refuel.

The Howard government awarded contracts worth $196.5m in 2005 to AeroRescue Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the Darwin-based Paspaley Group, to provide and fly the five Dorniers, which were purchased second-hand from overseas.
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Old 28th April 2008, 12:54 PM
Adam P. Adam P. is offline
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Interesting that 'industry sources' have concerns over the mounting of the radars in the nose. I seem to remember a certain Chieftain down in Wollongong that had FLIR in the nose... as well as everything else it carried, it meant that when a liferaft got chucked out the back, the loadmaster couldn't leave the rear bulkhead or the aeroplane would go dangerously out of trim. A similar case of the aircraft not quite being fit for purpose?
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Old 28th April 2008, 01:47 PM
Brenden S Brenden S is offline
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Amazing how AMSA (well Papersly) can stuff this up and National Jet introduce a brand new radar and avionics onto there Dash 8's. Good ol Johny stuff up really.
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Old 28th April 2008, 04:52 PM
Bob C Bob C is offline
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Maybe the advisors got it all wrong Brenden.

After all, Governments generally only act on the advice given to them by the so called experts.
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Old 3rd May 2008, 05:21 PM
Darryl Schlodder Darryl Schlodder is offline
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Adam P. wrote:

Quote:
Interesting that 'industry sources' have concerns over the mounting of the radars in the nose. I seem to remember a certain Chieftain down in Wollongong that had FLIR in the nose... as well as everything else it carried, it meant that when a liferaft got chucked out the back, the loadmaster couldn't leave the rear bulkhead or the aeroplane would go dangerously out of trim. A similar case of the aircraft not quite being fit for purpose?
Adam,
As I was once one of the Senior Dropmaster's for the company that you are referring to, I can assure you that no such thing ever happened. The aircraft was always in trim during all phases of any drop operations.
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Darryl
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