Costa cruise ship adrift in world’s most dangerous waters. Seychelles Coast Guard airplane, ships launched to the rescue. February 27, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Maritime Security.Tags: anti-piracy, Costa Allegra, Costa Concordia, drones, Indian Ocean, Italian Navy, Mahe, piracy, Seychelles, Seychelles Islands Development Company & Coast Guard
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It’s not a lucky period for Costa cruise ships.
Little more than a month since the Costa Concordia ran aground on rocks off the Isola del Giglio Island, Italy, another Costa cruise ship is facing an emergency. The Costa Allegra (188 meters long, 28,597 tonnes, 399 cabins, capacity of 1,400 pax) is adrift with 1,049 people on board, in the dark, about 250 miles southwest of the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean.
Image credit: AP Photo/Tano Pecoraro
The ship had left Madagascar on Saturday and was due to reach Mahe, in the Seychelles, on Tuesday. Following a fire (that has been extinguished), the ship is immobilized, with no electric lights and emergency batteries being used to keep essential services going. Although there’s no immediate danger for the people on board, all passengers and part of the crew are at the muster stations.
Merchant ships and tug boats have been directed to the rescue of the liner but the first asset to reach the stranded ship has been an unspecified maritime patrol aircraft belonging to the Seychelles Islands Development Company & Coast Guard launched by Seychelles International airport.
The aircraft has overflown the Costa Allegra assessing the status of the ship and relaying it to the Coast Guard and other ships involved in the rescue operation.
Mahe also hosts a U.S. drone detachment involved in the anti-piracy activities in the Horn of Africa (and are believed to launch air strikes against terrorist camps in the region): indeed, the Costa Allegra is adrift in an extremely dangerous waters, where the risk of pirate skiff attacks is ranked high.
For this reason, among the people on board the ship there are also Italian Navy armed guards: a Military Security Team is embarked on all Italian ships in seas under threat of pirates. A standard practice on all ships these days, even if Somali pirates have never hijacked cruise ships in the area.
Two Italian Navy riflemen belonging to the San Marco Battalion, are currently under custody in India pending the investigation about the alleged killing of two Indian fishermen 30 miles off the southern Indian coast on Feb. 15.
Image via Guido Olimpio
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UK about to launch air strikes to take out the Somali pirates once and for all. With some U.S. help. February 24, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Military Aviation.Tags: Al-Shabaab, anti-piracy, Camp Lemonnier, David Cameron, Djibouti, drones, Royal Marines, SA-7, Somali piracy, Somalia, U.S. Special Forces
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Although at this time this is just media speculation, there are reports in the UK that British Prime Minister is considering some form of air strikes on radical militants in Somalia along with dealing with the piracy issue.
After some 400 attacks and 100 hijackings in three years on international shipping, David Cameron would be drawing up plans to send one of two helicopter carriers loaded with Apache and Lynx attack helicopters, along with Royal Marines, to take out the Pirate camps once and for all.
Britain could also be working alongside other countries to rid Somalia of the pirate problem along with the radical group al-Shabab whom Cameron alleges has links to al-Qaida and is a direct threat to the UK and other nations.
The plans may have been given the green light by the Somalians themselves at the international conference that has taken place in London on Feb. 23, as the country’s government would welcome the air strikes so long as civilians were protected. Indeed, one of the problem the international community has to face is that the terrorists are even stopping aid and other forms of assistance reaching Somalia.
The intelligence agencies know where the pirate camps are along with the al-Shabab camps (indeed it can seen marked on Google Earth); the problem is the closeness to the civilian population and the need to keep casualties to the bare minimum.
According to speculations, French and U.S. forces would be involved in direct military action along with Britain and few other supporting nations. Even if it isn’t widely reported, looks like the US has already made a military strike deep in Somali territory and continues to hit al-Shabab with drone strikes (launched also from Mahe, in the Seychelles), every now and then.
Let’s see what kind of threat a coalition could find in the Horn of Africa. There are intelligence reports that 30 SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles have arrived into one of Somalia’s ports, thought to have been smuggled out of Libya and were once part of Colonel Gaddafi’s huge arsenal. This threat has also been backed up by the announcement of a find of a cache of some 43 anti-aircraft missiles composed of a mix of the older SA-7 and newer more potent SA-24s buried in Algeria, near the Libyan border. Most probably there are others in circulation that are currently unknown.
The operation is likely to be more surgical in nature and possibly amphibious as most of the camps are situated along the coastal region or not that far inland. Indeed the U.S. Special Forces raid that rescued two western aid workers was only some 30 miles (50km) from the coast. The operation could be run from Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, were several special operation planes are based (among them the recently crashed U-28A) and, although it is unlikely, if fast air is required that could come in the form of Harriers from a U.S. “multipurpose amphibious assault ship.”
Officially no decision has been made but as and when further details become clear, The Aviationist will report them.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
Image credit: Crown Copyright
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U.S. drones and spyplanes involved in information gathering missions over Syria. As in Libya one year ago. More or less… February 21, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Syria.Tags: drones, Libya, Predator, Reaper, RQ-170, Sigonella, Surface to Air Missile, Syria, U-2, UAS, Unmanned Aerial Systems
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More or less one year ago, we were observing an increasing activity of U.S., British, French and Italian military spy planes perfoming information gathering missions along the northern border of the Tripoli FIR (Flight Information Region).
Quite silently, those SIGINT (SIGnal INTelligence) platforms flew in the Maltese airspace to eavesdrop into Libyan communications and signals and to collect the information needed to build up the so-called EOB (Electronic Order of Battle) of the Libyan forces, that would be used to have a better understanding of the situation in Libya, to know where forces were located and to build up a priority target list for the subsequent air campaign.
Presumed to remain (almost) secret, those flights were actually “advertised” by LiveATC.net, whose Maltese feeder (shut down during the war) made the radio communications between Malta Area Control Center and the various EP-3s, RC-135 Rivet Joint, C-160G, British Nimrods R1s etc. transiting the local airspace before operating in “due regard”, public.
Although nowadays we can’t listen to the radio comms of the military traffic in that area as we did in February 2011 and we don’t have the same “evidences” we had one year ago, we can be quite confident that similar activities are being conducted in or around Syria from bases in Italy, Turkey or Cyprus (RAF Akrotiri airbase).
Along with the satellite image released by the US Embassy in Damascus some American defense officials told the NBC that “A good number of American drones are operating in the skies of Syria, monitoring the Syrian military’s attacks against opposition forces and innocent civilians alike”.
The Pentagon was quick to point out that these drones were providing surveillance not for a future military intervention but to gain evidence from both a visual and communications perspective to “make a case for a widespread international response”.
However, the confirmation that U.S. robots are flying inside the Syrian territory does pose the question: what type of drone are being used?
Most media outlets are using stock images of Predator or Reaper drones, but those unstealthy ‘bots would be vulnerable to the Syria SAM (Surface to Air Missile) network, believed to be among Middle East’s most robust ones. Both MQ-1 and 9 are Medium Altitude drones that could be operating in Syria only if flying outside the range of active SAM rings.
Hence, its conceivable that most ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) missions in the area are being flown by High Altitude platforms, as Air Force’s Global Hawks or U-2s (or even stealthy RQ-170s, as the one captured in Iran).
Even if Sigonella in Sicily, hosts the U.S. RQ-4Bs belonging to the 9th Operations Group/Detachment 4th, Incirlik in southern Turkey, being next to the border, seems to be more suitable for spy missions in Syria. Missions that these days could be aimed at assessing the type of activities conducted by the destroyer Shahid Qandi and the supply vessel Kharg, the two Iranian warships that have docked at the Syrian port of Tartus after passing through the Suez canal.
In fact Egyptian sources as well as members of the Syrian opposition claimed that the two vessels have been jamming satellite telephone communications of the Syrian opposition forces.
According to the same Egyptian sources, Assad’s forces have been finding it more difficult to monitor the oppositors’ communication due to their encrypted nature and someone believes that the Iranian Navy is helping him disrupting these encrypted communications.
A bit far fetched, considered that a land based systems would be less visible than two closely watched warships, but not completely impossible.
Worth a mention: an Israeli drone was spotted overflying clashes in Homs.
Anyway, the scenario is similar to the Libya of the end of February 2011. With the only difference that one year ago, the spyplanes did not fly into the “enemy” airspace.
Richard Clements has contributed to this article.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
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Drones to gain greater freedom in US airspace (and become a safety nightmare) February 14, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones.Tags: Air Traffic Control, Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, drones, Federal Aviation Administration, GPS, MQ-9 Reaper, Reaper, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, US Airspace
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The US Congress has approved legislation that will allow drones greater freedom over US airspace. The bill will give guidance to the Federal Aviation Administration over the next 4 years and give it the authority to open up greater areas to UAS (unmanned aerial systems). Worth some $63.4 billion, the bill includes some $11 billion to update the air traffic control system and achieve greater safety and collision avoidance in crowded airspaces by means of GPS-based ADS-B rather than radar control.
This would allow MQ-9 Reaper units, that are currently compelled to operate away from their main operating bases (with consequent logistical trouble due to having to ferry personnel to areas which can provide the unhindered training environment), the opportunity to exploit nearby stateside airspaces.
It was during operations over Libya in 2011 that aircraft enthusiasts all around the world became aware of the ability of the pilots of Global Hawks and Reapers to talk to local Air Traffic Control pretty much in the same way a normal manned aircraft would do getting clearance to gain altitude or to transit their controlled air space to waypoints: not only drones requested special corridors (advertised by specific freely available NOTAMs) and altitudes well above those that normal civilian air traffic would ask for, but, quite often, they radioed the aircraft type in the clear when requested by the ATC controller.
This is how unmanned systems will probably operate in the future over the de-restricted airspace: the pilot in his/her ground control station will ask for clearance from Air Traffic control to transit to and from firing ranges and other training facilities which would have otherwise been out of bounds.
The US Department of Homeland Security already use drones to patrol both Northern and Southern borders of the US but the de-restriction of unmanned aerial systems could lead to a greater employment of drones where it was supposed to be limited because of safety concerns.
As pointed out in previous articles, the extensive use of drones doesn’t seem to reduce error occurrences that are the main cause of aircraft crashes within the U.S. Air Force. According to a recently published report about 30 percent of airmen who control drones have been experiencing emotional stress caused from long hours of work.
Are we sure it’s time to open crowded airspace to an impressive fleet of (possibly armed) robots in the hands of operators that are “on the edge of mental illness” because of the tight shifts?
Other countries also limit the use of unmanned systems in their airspace, the UK being one of them which provides a small area over the Irish Sea for the training of UK personnel on WatchKeeper and other unmanned systems.
Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti
Image credit: Nellis AFB
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Future Drone’s World capital? Sigonella, Italy February 9, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones.Tags: Broad Area Maritime Surveillance, drones, Global Hawk, Libya, Northrop Grumman, Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, United States Air Force, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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On Feb. 3, 2012, NATO has finally agreed to implement the AGS (Alliance Ground Surveillance) a project that is based on high-altitude long range UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems), a main operating base and several command and control stations.
The cooperative defense project involves 13 nations: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the United States.
Wondering which drone will provide the alliance the capability to monitor “what’s happening on the ground, at long range, over periods of time, around the clock, in any weather” by year 2015?
Obviously, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk, the same type of unarmed reconnaissance drone that the U.S. Air Force has recently decided to scrap in favor of the old U-2 spy planes, Cold War veteran that will be kept in service well into the 2020s.
According to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance will acquire five RQ-4Bs that will be based at the MOB of Sigonella, in Italy.
Located in southeast Sicily, “Saigon” (as the U.S. aircrews dubbed it) has already been used during the Air War in Libya to host the Air Force’s Global Hawk and Reapers involved in ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and SCAR (Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance) missions in North Africa.
For instance, the U.S. RQ-4Bs belonging to the 9th Operations Group/Detachment 4th of the U.S. Air Force deployed to Sigonella, were the first to fly over Libya to perform high altitude Battle Damage Assessment sorties on targets located in regions with a residual SAM (Surface-to-Air Missiles) and MANPADS threat. Since Apr. 21, 2011, they were joined by armed MQ-1 Predators that flew their first strike sorties in the areas of Misurata and Tripoli and launched 145 air strikes firing hundred AGM-114 Hellfire missiles before taking part in the operation that led to the capture and killing of Gaddafi in Sirte, when an MQ-1 teamed up with a mixed flight of a Mirage F1CR and a Mirage 2000D and attacked the convoy used by the Libyan dictator in his attempt to flee the city.
Strategically located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Sigonella is the ideal base to conduct surveillance of North Africa, East Europe and Middle East. The base will not only host the (remaining) Air Force Global Hawks and AGS RQ-4s: the U.S. Navy MQ-4C BAMS-D (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance) drone, the “maritime” version of the Global Hawk, is expected to be based in five locations around the world, including “Saigon”, where some other platforms, as the French Herons and the (manned) RAF Sentinels could be deployed as well.
Rendering Sigonella, the Drone’s World capital.
Image: U.S. Air Force
North Korea developing its own UCAV. Based on U.S. drone. February 6, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, North Korea.Tags: drones, MQM-107 Streaker, North Korea, North Korean Military aviation, Raytheon, Unmanned combat air vehicle, US Air Force, US Army
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There are reports coming out of South Korean media that North Korea is developing UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles).
However rather than develop them from scratch they have purchased an unknown number of American made target drones from a middle eastern country thought to be Syria. It is thought that North Korea is going to reverse engineer the drone to produce an armed drone to patrol the disputed border it shares with South Korea and it’s thought it would be used to attack South Korean troops based on Islands in the Yellow Sea during a conflict.
The american drone mentioned us thought to be MQM-107 Streaker. Developed by Raytheon during the early ’70s, the Streaker is a high sub-sonic sub-scale target drone used by both U.S. Army and Air Force for testing guided missiles.
Further details are sparse and even the media source remains unnamed but The Aviationist will monitor and report back when further details emerge.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
Image: Wikipedia
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Another day, another Iranian drone. Tehran reveals the new “A1″ UAV. January 30, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, Iran.Tags: Ababil, drones, F-16, Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, Israel, Israel Defence, Military Aviation, UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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On Jan. 30, Iran has announced the development of a new UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) called the “A1″. According to the information released so far, the new drone allegedly has a service ceiling of 10,000 feet, an endurance of two hours and can carry up to a 11lbs (5kg) payload. Furthermore, it has an engine running on hi-octane gas/oil mix (2 stroke engine??) with a 2 blade pusher propeller and can be either launched from a ramp attached to the bed of a truck or ship-launched from rocket launchers.
These “features” seem to suggest that the new drone is another variant of the Ababil indigenous UAV family, which already includes the Ababil-5, used as a medium range surveillance platform, and the Ababil-T, a short to medium range UCAV with offensive capabilities.
Image credit: PressTV
Press TV website which broke the news also mentions a –B and a –S version but does not disclose what the purposes of these are.
It was an Ababil-T drone, allegedly launched from within Lebanon and sported Hezbollah markings, that was shot down in 2006 by an Israeli Air Force F-16 using a Rafael Python 5, about 5 nautical miles off Israel’s coast.
Ababil-T (credit: IDF)
The launching of the new drone is a further evidence of a blooming indigenous UAV program which has similar beginnings to that of the Israeli UAV program, started many years ago to develop drones for artillery spotting and battlefield overwatch as well as decoys for SAM sites (they are used to personify manned assets and spur a reaction by the SAM site that can be then attacked by other SEAD assets).
Although the significance of Iran’s UAV program remains unclear (especially if we consider the claims about the prodigious performance of some drones that are nothing more than scale models), it’s once again interesting to notice how the Iranian government use the local media to trickle out information on new systems being developed by Tehran.
The Aviationist will monitor further developments as and when they arise.
Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti
“Cleared hot”: the Italian AMX light combat planes to be cleared to carry (and use) bombs in Afghanistan January 28, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Afghanistan, AMX, drones, Italian Air Force, Joint Chief of Staff, Joint Direct Attack Munition, Libya, Precision-guided munition, Predator, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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As the air war in Afghanistan winds down, hitting a 3-year low in terms of combat sorties, Italy is about to lift one of the national caveats that has denied the Air Force’s AMX light bombers deployed to Herat, to carry PGM (Precision Guided Munitions) in combat.
In fact, although being able to carry bombs to support ground troops, the Italian AMXs, that emerged as some of the most cost-effective assets during the Air War in Libya and, much earlier, during the Allied Force in Serbia and Kosovo, were not allowed to carry any LGB (Laser Guided Bomb) or GPS-guided JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) .
So far, Italian ground troops in in trouble in Afghanistan have relied on AMX’s gun or….U.S. air support.
Since they could not carry bombs, AMX have mainly conducted reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan, using the Reccelite pod.
Following the experience in Libya, where the Italian planes have largely made use of bombs to protect Libyans threatened by pro-Gaddafi forces, in the last few days, the Minister of Defense Giampaolo Di Paola, has said before the joint defense committees of both houses that the MoD is willing to use the aircraft “without limitations.”
The use of precision bombs will not change the ROE (Rules of Engagement) said Gen. Biagio Abrate, Joint Chief of Staff, who added: “In Libya, we dropped the bombs and we did well.”
The AMX will be allowed to carry the GBU-32 JDAMs, the GBU-16 Paveway, and the Lizard guidance kit that enables 500-lbs Mk82 bombs to hit the target illuminated by the laser.
Abrate also explained that the MoD is willing to provide weapons to the Predator UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) that in Afghanistan is used for reconnaissance duties only. Both the Predator A and the B (Reaper), that was used in Libya to boost NATO’s ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) capabilities, can carry bombs even if Italy has not procured missiles and PGMs for them yet.
An AMX taking off from Nellis AFB during a Red Flag (credit: Italian Air Force)
Computer viruses, mysterious bomb blasts, assassinations and PSYOPS: Israel’s stealth war on Iran already begun? December 2, 2011
Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Iran, Military Aviation.Tags: drones, Heyl Ha' Havir, IAF, Iran, Iran's nuclear program, Israeli Air Force, Micro Air Vehicles, Military Aviation, PSYOPS, UAV
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When writing about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, many analysts and journalists seem to forget that, although not of the type one might expect, the attack against Tehran nuke sites has already kicked off. Many still believe that a conventional military action against Iran is a future possibility forgetting that a long lasting hi-tech war in the region is (most probably) already in progress.
Last October, about 20 military personnel were killed in a blast at a Revolutionary Guards annunition depot. On Nov. 12, an explosion at Bid Ganeh, a military base located in the outskirs of Tehran killed General Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, head of Iran’s missile defense program along with 30 other people. Few days ago, another blast in Isfahan, Iran’s third-largest city, could have hit a uranium conversion site.
Israel is also widely held as responsible for using the Stuxnet virus to target Iran’s nuclear plants.
There also have been many other mysterious episodes: home and abroad assassinations and plane accidents as the one involving the Tupolev 134 that crashed near Petrozavodsk on June 21 while carrying five Russian scientists who assisted in the design of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Even if some of these incidents have been denied by the ayatollahs’ regime, their frequency and effectiveness is causing frustration among Iranians, appearantly unable to react to an invisible, unknown and sophisticated multi-directional and multi-dimensional attack. Hence, the new kind of war is also having the same psychological effects of a complex PSYOPS mission.
Israel has never confirmed its direct involvement in it but it is quite likely that the hi-tech stealth war is the only way to sabotage Ahmadinejad’s program preventing Iran’s “fierce, protracted and multi-pronged” retaliation.
Still, what tech was used to attack the nuclear plants remains an unanswered question. An intriguing theory (no more than that, please!) that was inspired by a talk with Giuliano Ranieri is that some killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, known to be under development by Israel for counter-terrorism activities could have been developed and used against the Iranian sites, even if such drones are not be capable to perform long range missions and could not be used for this kind of covert ops unless they are launched from the vicinity of the target or from a sort of “mothership” (another larger drone). By the way, did you know that Israeli UAVs can be remotely controlled by flying F-15s or AH-64 Apaches?
It is also possible that the recent attacks involved one or more Dolphin Class submarines in the Red Sea (or Persian Gulf) capable of launching Popeye Turbo cruise missiles at 1,500 km from underwater.
Anyway the use of Israeli combat planes, “normal” drones and so on, is probably a “last resort” option, not only because it would cause an almost certain retaliatory attack using medium-range ballistic missiles, possibly armed with chemical, biological or radiological warheads, but also because it would be an extremely complex operation to plan and execute, even for a combat proven air force, with past experience on long range raids.
Too many combat aircraft, too many air-to-air refueling planes and support planes to go unnoticed.
And what about the route? Even if the US withdrawal from Iraq would give clearance to a raid on that direction, it’s hard to believe that a strike package would pass undetected by an air defense on a heightned readiness status during ingress and egress from their targets. Unless the Israeli have improved their already effective EW capabilities, the same that during Operation Orchard, on Sept. 6, 2007, let the 10 F-15Is attack a nuclear facility being built in Syria completely undetected.
An attack that Israel has never publicly confirmed.
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The most unusual display team ever: two jet planes and a jet man. Is this the future of military aviation? November 26, 2011
Posted by David Cenciotti in Aviation, Military Aviation.Tags: Breitling Jet Team, drones, fighter pilot, Jet Man, jet pack, L-39C, Military Aviation, UAS, Yves Rossy
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Yves Rossy is pilot with experience with the Dassault Mirage III and the F-5 Tiger in the Swiss Air Force, and with the B747 for Swissair. However, he is most known for being an aviation inventor rather than a former combat pilot. In fact he is the first person who was able to fly using a jet-powered fixed wing strapped to his back. A jet pack which led him to be named “Jet Man”.
After his first flight, dating back to November 2006, with his self developed back pack system, that includes also semi-rigid carbon-fiber wings and four attached jet engines, Rossy set several records: he flew across the English Channel, over the Alps and across the Grand Canyon.
However not all his attempt were successful. In November 2009, he failed to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and ditched into the sea to be rescued minutes later by a support helicopter few miles from the Spanish coast.
His last achievement can be seen in the video below. The Jet Man flew in formation with two L-39C of the Breitling Jet Team in what I believe was the first mixed human-airplane echelon formation ever!
According to the information available on the Internet, he once again used a helicopter as a flying platform. After jumping off the chopper he adjusted his flight path and altitude using his body movements and then performed some aerobatic maneuvers above the Swiss Alps alongside the two jet planes.
The following video is not only a gift for the “geekend”: it raises some interesting questions about the possible use of jetpack-propelled soldiers to infiltrate special forces behind the enemy lines across a heavily guarded No Fly Zone. Low observability, reduced noise levels, almost nonexistent radar cross section, small IR footprint: just imagine how difficult it could be to detect a formation of “jetpackers”.
In future robot wars fought by remotely controlled unmanned drones and robots, a jetpack similar to the one used by Yves Rossy could be the only way to postpone the final extinction of the word “manned” from the vocabulary of military aviation.
Update:
There is also another possibility suggested me on Twitter by Tim Robinson, Editor of Aerospace International the flagship magazine of the Royal Aeronautical Society, with the current financial crisis, the jetpack could be the low cost fighter jet of the Eurozone air forces…..
