Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Citation :

Korea Coast Guard operates CN-235 for maritime patrol (photo : Hyeonwoo Noh)

JOSEPH TREVITHICK - The Drive a écrit:

Navy P-8A Maritime Patrol Planes To Get Pods Loaded With Radar Jamming 'Little Buddies'

The podded towed decoy system will help improve the survivability of the Navy's P-8As during higher-end conflicts.

The U.S. Navy recently tested a new podded self-protection system for the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane. The pod, the outer shell of which is derived from the shape of the AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile, is designed to release an AN/ALE-55 towed decoy capable of jamming enemy radars or luring incoming radar-homing missiles away from the aircraft. These pods, and the decoys inside them, often referred to as "little buddies," could help improve the survivability of the service's P-8As, especially during higher-end conflicts involving near-peer adversaries, such as China or Russia. The decoy system is just one of a number of efforts that the Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force, have conducted in recent years exploring ways to add additional countermeasures capabilities to larger, non-stealthy aircraft.

A P-8A assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 20 (VX-20) out of Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Maryland finished basic airworthiness testing of the pod out over the Navy's Atlantic Test Ranges on March 12, 2021. The service then sent the system to Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake in California, where it successfully completed "effectiveness testing" on March 26. The plan is now to fully integrate the system onto the P-8A and field it operationally.


A P-8A Poseidon with a prototype of the podded decoy system under its wing.

"This has the potential to be a game-changer for protecting the warfighter," Navy Captain Eric Gardner, the Program Manager for the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft Program Office within Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), also known as PMA-290, said in a statement. "We continue to look for ways to enhance capabilities that allow the fleet to be successful."

The development of the towed decoy pod was a collaborative effort between the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft Program Office and NAVAIR's Advanced Tactical Aircraft Protection Systems Program Office, as well as the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division's (NAWCAD) Aircraft Prototype Systems Division (APSD) and Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation & Demonstration (RPED) team. BAE Systems, the manufacturer of the AN/ALE-55 decoy was also involved by way of a so-called Other Transaction Authority (OTA) deal, a contracting mechanism meant to support rapid prototyping and other research and development work. The actual funding for the project came from the Naval Innovative Science & Engineering (NISE) program.



"A lot of the challenge and effort went into designing, to our best estimates, for what BAE was expected to put in the pod," Michael Hansell, the lead engineer on the project at APSD, said. "We had to adapt and redesign rapidly. We worked as fast as possible to support PMA-290 and RPED to make sure we could pivot and adjust to meet established timelines."

From what can be seen of the pod in the pictures that the Navy has released, it is an AGM-84-shaped design with the decoy launcher mounted at the rear. Starting with the general form factor of the Harpoon, which the P-8A is already certified to carry, would have only helped in crafting a self-protection system that could be rapidly integrated onto the Poseidon.

The choice of the AN/ALE-55 also makes good sense as it is already in service on Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. When deployed, the decoy trails behind the aircraft, towed by a fiber-optic line.


An artist's depiction of an AN/ALE-55 decoy trailing behind an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet

The AN/ALE-55 can scramble hostile emitters, such as enemy radars, to prevent them from locking onto the aircraft, or initiate electronic attacks to break an established lock. The decoy also has the ability to emit signals designed to lure incoming missiles away from the plane towing it. The system functions by way of a control unit, in this case mounted in the pod, that sends specific commands to the decoy via the fiber-optic line.

This all makes for a very flexible system that can respond quickly to various and potentially rapidly changing threats. The AN/ALE-55 is a marked improvement over the older AN/ALE-50 decoy, which had an entirely self-contained electronic warfare system, the function of which could not be dynamically altered to respond to more specific kinds of threats.

Beyond its specific capabilities, the AN/ALE-55 will simply offer P-8A crews an important tool to defend against radiofrequency threats. At present, the aircraft defensive suite is much more focused on protecting against heat-seeking threats, with a missile approach warning system tied to a directional infrared countermeasures system and dispensers loaded with decoy flares.


The P-8A's directional infrared countermeasures system is seen under the tail

The aircraft does have radar warning receivers to alert the crew that an opponent is trying to or has locked on them. The aircraft's robust electronic support measures (ESM) package offers an additional way to monitor for threats, as well as to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions with regards to enemy emitters, such as radars, too. The P-8A's countermeasures dispensers can launch cartridges loaded with radar-confusing chaff, but chaff is not commonly carried because the P-8's radar signature is so big, it would do little to protect the aircraft in most cases. The P-8 does not have any sort of internal electronic warfare jamming system for self-protection, or the ability to carry such a system in a podded form.

It's interesting to note that there had been an expectation in the past that spiral developments would lead to the integration of radiofrequency countermeasures systems onto the P-8A, but those plans had previously been dropped. "Radio frequency countermeasures are planned for spiral development, with installation provisions (including wiring and mounting pylons) incorporated into all production aircraft," the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, wrote in the section on the P-8A in its annual report covering the 2011 Fiscal Year.

DOT&E's Fiscal Year 2017 report notably lacks any such language regarding the P-8A. "On- and off-board sensors and datalink systems are used to improve tactical situational awareness of expected threat systems," it says instead.

It's not surprising that the Navy has returned to the idea of adding more robust radiofrequency countermeasures to the P-8A's defensive arsenal given the shift in focus across the U.S. military in recent years toward being better prepared for higher-end conflicts, especially against major potential adversaries, such as China or Russia. Poseidons, together with other anti-submarine warfare assets, would be critical in a major conflict in the Pacific region, as well as in and around Europe, where improving Russian and Chinese submarine capabilities present increasing challenges for American forces and their allies and partners.

In a major conflict, the Navy's P-8A would be very vulnerable to increasingly longer-range sea and ground-based air defenses, as well as enemy combat aircraft equipped with ever-more-advanced air-to-air weaponry. The Iranian shootdown of a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Broad Area Maritime Surveillance. Demonstrator (BAMS-D) drone over the Gulf of Oman in 2019 also underscores the increasing proliferation of these threats to smaller countries, as well, and how they are increasingly a factor around the world, even on routine missions outside of formal conflicts.

This decoy-launching pod is in line with a variety of other efforts the Navy, along with the Air Force, has been pursuing in recent years to help improve the survivability of various platforms that are critical, but also large, slow and non-stealthy. This includes the Poseidons, as well as various intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, aerial refueling tankers, and cargo planes.



With all this in mind, it's not hard to imagine the Navy's new podded decoy system, which appears to be a relatively low-cost, but a highly-capable defensive tool, finding its ways onto other aircraft within the service and elsewhere across the U.S. military, as well as with allies and partners. Versions of the P-8, itself, are already in service in Australia, India, and the United Kingdom. The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and South Korea all have examples on order, too.

At the same time, this pod will be just one part of a growing electronic warfare ecosystem, that could include additional capabilities within particular aircraft, such as the P-8, working together with other offboard platforms. The Navy is heavily invested in an overarching networked electronic warfare effort, dubbed the Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors, or NEMESIS, that is seeking to link together systems on manned and unmanned aircraft, especially autonomous drone swarms, as well as ships and submarines so that they can work together cooperatively. A key focus area of NEMESIS, which you can read more about in this past feature, is on developing ways to create phantom fleets of aircraft and ships, viewed by a range of enemy sensors over a wide area, to confuse opponents and make it difficult for them to respond effectively.

However the Navy's overarching electronic warfare plans do continue to evolve, in the near term, these podded decoys look set to give the Navy's P-8As an important defensive capability against radio frequency threats that they really do need.

Citation :

11/07/2021

Pakistan, le programme Sea Sultan avance !



Je vous en parlais en octobre dernier, le remplacement des avions de patrouille maritime pakistanais et maintenant bien engagé. La marine pakistanaise vaconvertir jusqu'à 10 Embraer Lineage 1000 en avions de patrouille navale (MPA) et de guerre anti-sous-marine (ASW) pour remplacer sa flotte de 6 P-3A Orions dans les années à venir.

Le défi de la conversion

Tout comme le P-8A « Poseidon » issus du B737 ou le GlobalEye du Global 6000, la principale difficulté de ce programme concerne la conversion d’une cellule d’avion civile en version militarisée. L’ajout d’une baie pour emporter de l’armement sous le ventre ou le renforcement des ailes, pose des problèmes importants de structure.

On ne connaissait pas à l’époque qui serait chargé de de la conversion. Selon dernières informations, le contrat a été attribué à l'italien Leonardo pour la conversion des trois premières unités de l'Embraer Lineage 1000 en MPA/ASW.

Sultan des mers

La première étape du projet a été la publication d'un appel d'offres pour un avion à réaction bimoteur d'une masse maximale au décollage (MTOW) de 54 500 à 63 500 kilogrammes et d'une autonomie de plus de 4 000 milles marins (6 437 km).

La marine pakistanaise a également ajouté que les « composants principaux » de l'avion, tels que les moteurs, le système de commandes de vol, le train d'atterrissage et d'autres pièces critiques, ne devraient pas être couverts par le règlement américain sur le trafic d'armes (ITAR).

Pour la deuxième étape, la Marine modélise l'instrumentation à bord du nouveau « Sea Sultan » sur celle du RAS-72 « Sea Eagle ». Le RAS-72 est un avion de patrouille maritime (MPA) basé sur l'ATR-72. Leonardo a été l'entreprise choisie pour effectuer les modifications et pour intégrer ses propres équipements de capteurs, de commande et de contrôle et de communication.

Embraer Lineage 1000

Le Lineage 1000 est une variante de l’Embraer 190. Ce jet privé a été lancé le 2 mai 2006. Fabriqué par l’avionneur brésilien Embraer. Avion d’affaires « ultra large » pouvant accueillir jusqu'à 19 passagers. Le Lineage 1000 dispose de 2 réservoirs sur le pont inférieur de l'appareil, doublant quasiment son rayon d'action. L'intérieur est divisé en 5 sections, incluant une chambre (optionnel) et une salle de bain. Un autre point remarquable du Lineage 1000 est le diamètre de son fuselage qui est beaucoup plus important que celui de n'importe quel autre avion d'affaires. Le Lineage 1000 est seulement devancé au niveau de la taille par des avions comme les Airbus A318, 319 et le B737. Le premier vol du Lineage 1000 a eu lieu en 2007.



Photos : Programme Sea Sultan @ Embraer / Leonardo

http://psk.blog.24heures.ch/archive/2021/07/11/pakistan-le-programme-sea-sultan-avance-871318.html

Citation :

Un opérateur à identifier ?

Or, l'Angola est présenté par Airbus comme le 38e opérateur du C295. Une coquille ou le 37e reste-t-il encore à être identifié ? Et si oui pour combien d'exemplaires ? Lors du contrat passé par la Serbie, le nombre de C295 vendus portait sur un total de 281 exemplaires. Cette fois, dans le cas du contrat avec l'Angola, le total n'est pas précisé. Histoire de brouiller les pistes ?

The Spanish Ministry of Defence has ordered 16 Airbus #C295 aircraft, in Maritime Patrol (MPA) configuration & in Maritime Surveillance (MSA) configuration.
The contract amounts to €1.695billion.
Read more:https://t.co/PVYQxKAF28 pic.twitter.com/cZ80bDMjTg

— Airbus Defence (@AirbusDefence) December 20, 2023

Citation :

WDS 2024 – Leonardo showcases its C27J MPA configuration and details its gunship solution

14/02/2024

Paolo Valpolini

At the World Defense Show Leonardo showcased the maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) version of its C27J Spartan, and detailed the gunship solution of that same aircraft
Leonardo is continuing improving and diversifying its offer based on the C27J twin turboprop tactical transport aircraft, the latest iteration of that platform being displayed at WDS. Developed looking at evolving capability requirements assessed across geographies, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, the scale model of the MPA was visible on the company booth alongside that of the gunship version, which for example has been in development for the Italian Air Force for some years.

The requirements for the MPA might differ in many aspects, EDR On-Line understood, Leonardo being ready to take in count specific needs of each customer. Such a platform should be capable to conduct antisubmarine (ASW) and anti-surface (ASuW) missions as well as full ISAR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) missions, with also COMINT (communications intelligence) capabilities, and meet needs for endurance that exceeds that of the aircraft with standard fuel tanks. The configuration on show was initially conceived with a significant amount of Italian industrial content.




The most visible features of the C27J MPA are the three hardpoints present under each outer wing, the total underwing payload being 6,000 kg. For ASuW missions the company offers the Marte ER developed by MBDA Italy, while for ASW operations the weapon of choice is the MU90 lightweight torpedo developed and produced by EuroTorp, the French-Italian consortium established between Leonardo, Naval Group, and Thales.

One of the possible market solutions, to cope with long range requirements, is the adoption of a “wet” inner pylon, which allows installing an external fuel tank under each wing, considerably increasing the endurance, EDR On-Line understanding this should be around 12 hours.

The addition of a 3,000 kg load per wing was allowed by the design of the new wing, which winglet provides considerable lift at the extremity. A typical configuration would see the 1,000 kg fuel load on the inner pylon, the two other carrying 700 kg each, however a solution with three identical “dry” pylons might be adopted should the customer requirement not include extra-range capability.

Leonardo proposes the full self-protection suite based on that being developed as part of the Mid-Life Update (MLU) of the Italian Air Force C27J fleet. This includes the ELT radar warning receiver, Leonardo missile warning system providing 360° coverage and interfaced with the cockpit, one DIRCM (Directional Infrared Counter Measures) per side at the rear, Leonardo laser warning receiver, and MESS chaff and flare launchers, also capable to launch decoys. The communications suite will include line of sight radios as well as SATCOM Ku/Ka systems.




Coming to sensors, at the rear the C27J MPA is fitted with the magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) sensor. Two configurations are available, one with the MAD directly fitted to the rear of the aircraft, and one with a rear flat sponson containing VHF/UHF antennas for the COMINT role (HF antennas being installed along the fuselage). A chin mounted 15-inch gimbal is fitted (a bigger one being considered for the ISAR role) under the fuselage, followed by a search radar selected among Leonardo products. Rear doors are taken from the US Coast Guard configuration and are all transparent allowing an optimal view downwards. For ASW missions a sonobuoy launcher is available, the customer being free to select a pressurised or non pressurised solution.

As for the inside layout, starting from the front, a first pallet will host the rest area, while the second and third pallets will host five consoles on the right side of the aircraft, while on the left we find the galley and a storage area, the latter hosting sonobuoys or other equipment. Moving to the back we find the two observers’ stations, the ramp hosting the launchers for small markers and sonobuoys. Depending on customers’ requirements the Search And Rescue kit can be launched either from the ramp or from a hatch.

The C27J MPA is heavily based on the US Coast Guard configuration, Leonardo being able to deliver the aircraft in 36 months from the order, the same time needed to deliver the ATR platform in the maritime version.



Coming to the MC27J gunship, its’ development started some years ago under an Italian requirement aimed at providing Special Forces with adequate aerial fire support. Known as Praetorian, the aircraft was tested with different gun solutions, the one retained being the GAU-23 30mm automatic cannon, the aviation variant of Northrop Grumman’s Mk44 Bushmaster II. EDR On-Line understood that a precision guided munition solution might be retained as an alternative instead of the gun, should the customer focus on collateral damage considerations. The model seen at WDS was fitted with the palletised gun on the left side, however right and left, at the back of the aircraft three PGM launchers were visible.

As said, a debate is ongoing regarding hard kill effectors; the PGM solution would provide a major benefit, that of blending the aircraft into the general Spartan fleet, not making it a high value target for the enemy, as visually it will be very much the same, which would not be the case in the gun-fitted version.



The internal layout sees a first pallet dedicated to command and control systems, with Ku/Ka SATCOMs, and a full suite of radios for line-of-sight link with troops on the ground. It is followed by two pallets hosting seats for the Special Forces detachment, fitted with oxygen capability, then comes a pallet with SIGINT and jamming systems, followed eventually by the gun pallet. A chin-mounted 15- or 20-inch gimbal is installed providing ISAR and targeting capabilities.

Leonardo is currently carrying on trials with the Italian Air Force in order to freeze the configuration. This should happen soon, first aircraft availability being forecasted within three years. The aircraft will obviously benefit from all improvements recently introduced, among which the already mentioned winglets.

Photos by P. Valpolini


https://www.edrmagazine.eu/leonardo-showcases-its-c27j-mpa-configuration-and-details-its-gunship-solution