Eye In The Sky
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How often has it he flown the profiles being discussed though?
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It's a matter of physics - not engine design. Fighter aircraft use AB during their takeoff role to overcome the initial slow acceleration. Turbo-prop acceleration is near instantaneous.
Some rather basics of flight - compare a Power Curve vice a Thrust Curve. Turbo-props produce POWER, turbo-fans produce THRUST. The thrust curve is slow at the start, but quickly gains on the power curve and exceeds it (hence why Jet aircraft are faster than prop). That being said, the power curve shows an inverse relationship with a high side on the slow side (ie fast acceleration) and it slowly leveling off.
Jet engine (aka turbo-fans) generate THRUST through application of fuel into the burner cans of a turbine - if you want to go faster, you push up the throttles and the engine accelerates with fuel addition. Turbo-props (Q-400, King Air, Hercules, Buffalo, etc) use constant speed propellers mated through a gear box to a turbine. The turbine is usually spinning at full RPMs - it's just the pitch of the blades that is changed to increase/decrease speed. As the pitch of the blades change, the drag-force of the blade will slow the turbine, which will prompt its fuel handler to add more fuel to keep the turbine spinning at the same speed. Most turbo-prop aircraft use a combination of controls to select their performance in-flight - throttles and prop controls. Some larger turbo-props (Hercules/Electra) don't control their prop RPMs, they just add HP/Torque/whatever and the airspeed increases. **This is a very basic description of what is going on "under the hood" - purists please forgive me.
That all being said - when I'm "licking the bowl" of a mountain cirque, or close contouring a mountain ridge - I want/need instantaneous response. Any sort of lag really won't cut it.
Can this be overcome by jet aircraft - absolutely. Modern motors have FADEC engine controls - not fiddling with power setting, just slam the throttles full forward - this helps. What else can be done is that the use of large drag devices and a spun up turbine combination can be used. Basically conducting a "brake stand" with your expensive airplane. Push up the throttles high enough that they are producing good thrust - put out your flaps, landing gear, speed brakes - something that can be retracted tout-suite.
Personally I think the 390 looks like a good contender - the old SAR dog method of searching is fading - EO/IR and friends like EITS will do all the grunt work while I fly orbits in the sky.
Some rather basics of flight - compare a Power Curve vice a Thrust Curve. Turbo-props produce POWER, turbo-fans produce THRUST. The thrust curve is slow at the start, but quickly gains on the power curve and exceeds it (hence why Jet aircraft are faster than prop). That being said, the power curve shows an inverse relationship with a high side on the slow side (ie fast acceleration) and it slowly leveling off.
Jet engine (aka turbo-fans) generate THRUST through application of fuel into the burner cans of a turbine - if you want to go faster, you push up the throttles and the engine accelerates with fuel addition. Turbo-props (Q-400, King Air, Hercules, Buffalo, etc) use constant speed propellers mated through a gear box to a turbine. The turbine is usually spinning at full RPMs - it's just the pitch of the blades that is changed to increase/decrease speed. As the pitch of the blades change, the drag-force of the blade will slow the turbine, which will prompt its fuel handler to add more fuel to keep the turbine spinning at the same speed. Most turbo-prop aircraft use a combination of controls to select their performance in-flight - throttles and prop controls. Some larger turbo-props (Hercules/Electra) don't control their prop RPMs, they just add HP/Torque/whatever and the airspeed increases. **This is a very basic description of what is going on "under the hood" - purists please forgive me.
That all being said - when I'm "licking the bowl" of a mountain cirque, or close contouring a mountain ridge - I want/need instantaneous response. Any sort of lag really won't cut it.
Can this be overcome by jet aircraft - absolutely. Modern motors have FADEC engine controls - not fiddling with power setting, just slam the throttles full forward - this helps. What else can be done is that the use of large drag devices and a spun up turbine combination can be used. Basically conducting a "brake stand" with your expensive airplane. Push up the throttles high enough that they are producing good thrust - put out your flaps, landing gear, speed brakes - something that can be retracted tout-suite.
Personally I think the 390 looks like a good contender - the old SAR dog method of searching is fading - EO/IR and friends like EITS will do all the grunt work while I fly orbits in the sky.
Eye In The Sky
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Ditch said:
That's the big reason I'm following this one along...having been in normal/stretch model Hercs, and been around aircraft like the CN-235, I'm interested what people thing will work that know stuff about SAR loads, mission profiles, etc.
I think airframes the size of the 235, etc are very small and have a hard time imagining them doing SAR in Canada.
There is a reason why the use of the buffalos were confined to the west coast. They are a niche aircraft operating in a specific environment. SAR in every nation I have worked in has matched the aircraft to the airspace. GB for instance is a small country: helicopters serve most of their needs admirably while the US coast guard deploys C130s. They need the range and endurance that that platform supplies. The 390 appears to be a good airplane for most of our needs. The west coast may still need a Buffalo style asset or perhaps more cormorants. We may also need to disperse our assets to more adequately serve.
Eye In The Sky
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I'll add a few 'wish list' items from a sensor view.
- EO/IR. HD, color EOW/EON cameras with continuous-zoom for all 3.
- RADAR. Would be swept up to have something that does LRCS/low-freeboard/low vis, interleaved SART for maritime, SAR (landspot/stripmap) for overland.
- DMS. Falconview/GoogleEarth Imagery capable moving map overlays. Obviously, you'd want to ability to fuse all data onto your display. Once console for the operator, displays similar to B3 or heck, the P-8 to view 'everything at once'.
Any reason the big honkin' searchlight like the Argus had couldn't be added, even as a retractable one on the belly?
- EO/IR. HD, color EOW/EON cameras with continuous-zoom for all 3.
- RADAR. Would be swept up to have something that does LRCS/low-freeboard/low vis, interleaved SART for maritime, SAR (landspot/stripmap) for overland.
- DMS. Falconview/GoogleEarth Imagery capable moving map overlays. Obviously, you'd want to ability to fuse all data onto your display. Once console for the operator, displays similar to B3 or heck, the P-8 to view 'everything at once'.
Any reason the big honkin' searchlight like the Argus had couldn't be added, even as a retractable one on the belly?
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Eye In The Sky said:
Isn't that putting you into the realm of this aircraft?
With the added benefits of retaining transport capability, additional inflight refuelling to extend the range/endurance of Cormorants/Chinooks and an Air-to-Ground strike capability.
Eye In The Sky
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13 displays...may be a few too many. ;D And minus the LAIRCM too.
I'd like to see more specs on the 'low power' RADAR; todays RADARs don't need to be able to fry seagulls from 100m, but I'd personally like something that can detect/track out to 200nm (large contacts...group 3 size). Weather mode...yup, chuck that in.
Add AIS, its a nice to have and great for SA.
As for it being a '130...I haven't worked or been on a SAR mission except on the Aurora, so I don't know enough to comment; Ditch has previously mentioned a Herc means wasted space. Me, I am a fan of 4 fans turning when I'm feet wet and far from home. You can always loiter to extend your ONSTA/PLE when you have 4, not so much when you only have 2. Something like an Atlantique has great endurance with 2 engines, but is slower getting ONSTA.
Gadgets like EO/IR and RADAR can certainly aide in a search, but if you are looking for a person in the water in a poopy-suit at night...well that's why I asked about a big ol searchlight that could be extended/retracted (if not on the wing like the Argus or Nimrod), because times like that I'd personally like to have spotters able to see like its daytime around them and it would help the EO dude/dudette pick out the orange stuff in the water at night. A PIW is hard to see in the water at night with IR (my experience, at least).
Ideally, I'd put two Sensor folks on the crew with that gear, and have 2 stations that were fully capable of employing the entire sensor suite. If you have one station and that WSC or display goes down mid-mission, you're SOL. If both were up and running, the workload would be better managed IMO.
:2c:
However, after saying all that, and with the reluctance of Canada to spend $$ on 'military stuff', and the way our MH replacement, fighter replacement, FWSAR replacement, CPF replacement...and the list goes on...procurement has gone, I've included a picture below of what might end up being the 'sensor suite' on theUnicorn new platform if/when it is actually delivered...
^-^
I'd like to see more specs on the 'low power' RADAR; todays RADARs don't need to be able to fry seagulls from 100m, but I'd personally like something that can detect/track out to 200nm (large contacts...group 3 size). Weather mode...yup, chuck that in.
Add AIS, its a nice to have and great for SA.
As for it being a '130...I haven't worked or been on a SAR mission except on the Aurora, so I don't know enough to comment; Ditch has previously mentioned a Herc means wasted space. Me, I am a fan of 4 fans turning when I'm feet wet and far from home. You can always loiter to extend your ONSTA/PLE when you have 4, not so much when you only have 2. Something like an Atlantique has great endurance with 2 engines, but is slower getting ONSTA.
Gadgets like EO/IR and RADAR can certainly aide in a search, but if you are looking for a person in the water in a poopy-suit at night...well that's why I asked about a big ol searchlight that could be extended/retracted (if not on the wing like the Argus or Nimrod), because times like that I'd personally like to have spotters able to see like its daytime around them and it would help the EO dude/dudette pick out the orange stuff in the water at night. A PIW is hard to see in the water at night with IR (my experience, at least).
Ideally, I'd put two Sensor folks on the crew with that gear, and have 2 stations that were fully capable of employing the entire sensor suite. If you have one station and that WSC or display goes down mid-mission, you're SOL. If both were up and running, the workload would be better managed IMO.
:2c:
However, after saying all that, and with the reluctance of Canada to spend $$ on 'military stuff', and the way our MH replacement, fighter replacement, FWSAR replacement, CPF replacement...and the list goes on...procurement has gone, I've included a picture below of what might end up being the 'sensor suite' on the
^-^
A searchlight would be great for picking up reflective items even better than orange ones. Nite Sun was marvellous when looking for a-holes trying to hid in bushes when I was doing police helicopter work. They always wore running shoes with small reflective areas, and always left their feet sticking out. Thirty million candlepower just loved it.
George Wallace
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Loachman said:
Thirty million candlepower.......AH! Memories of the Leo C1 A1. [
Oldgateboatdriver
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Loachman said:
Not to mention, for fun, if the SAR crew comes upon a submarine on the surface by chance, you go at them and turn the light on at the last moment: It still scares the living "daylight" out of them even today.
Bonus ;D
Eye In The Sky
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Ditch said:
Part of our SAR load as well, BUT I'd like to have the searchlight as well myself...hard to keep a LUU moving along as 200kts. Less to worry about if fuel on the surface is a concern. Nice to have options...
The Argus had a 70 million candlelight power searchlight. I never saw it but Dad said it literally was the difference between night and day. ;D
Colin Parkinson
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Loachman said:
We had 2 on the SRN 6 hovercraft, in fact we rented them out to the movies, you know when you see the "UFO" light beam from the sky in X files, that was one of our Night Suns on a tall crane. 8)
Blackadder1916
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Happened upon an episode of "Mighty Planes"* on Discovery Channel that profiled the Buffalo. While it is mostly (like the majority of episodes of the series) a puff piece extolling the wonderfulness of the aircraft and crew (doesn't touch at all on possible replacement project), it may be interesting to some of the participants of this thread to see how much SAR gear is packed into the back and what a typical mission profile may entail. Since the last time I flew in a Buff was the late 1980s (as pax between Ottawa and Andrews AFB when it replaced the Cosmo on that scheduled run), it did remind me that it doesn't take much to fill it up.
One feature that I did notice and that was specifically mentioned was the Buff's STOL capability. During one of the exercises that served as the background to the story the a/c was required to land at Gilles Bay (?) along with a Cormorant to transfer (mock) casualties and SAR Techs. How important is STOL (equivalent to the CC-115) in the SAR mission - particularly on the West Coast, and do the potential replacements have a STOL capability that matches the Buffalo or at least is adequate to the requirement?
*The episode may not be available for viewing from Discovery Channel's website, I wasn't able to - had to watch it the old fashioned way, on a TV according to their schedule.
One feature that I did notice and that was specifically mentioned was the Buff's STOL capability. During one of the exercises that served as the background to the story the a/c was required to land at Gilles Bay (?) along with a Cormorant to transfer (mock) casualties and SAR Techs. How important is STOL (equivalent to the CC-115) in the SAR mission - particularly on the West Coast, and do the potential replacements have a STOL capability that matches the Buffalo or at least is adequate to the requirement?
*The episode may not be available for viewing from Discovery Channel's website, I wasn't able to - had to watch it the old fashioned way, on a TV according to their schedule.
I have always loved DH products going all the way back to the chipmunk. The buffalos are unique and there is nothing on the market short of rotary wing or vstol that can match them. Do we need their performance characteristics? SAR experts from BC could answer that better than I can but you wouldn't want a complete fleet based on the Buf, much as I wish otherwise. It is too slow and does not have sufficient range. If I had been Lockheed I would have bid a fleet of c130's for the major part of the country and arranged a sub-contract with Viking to zero time the bufs (something they can easily do and have been doing for the twin otter and beavers for years) complete with new engines and avionics to cover the west coast. But that isn't going to happen. Whatever we decide on will not be able to compete in the mountains with the current aircraft. Do we need it? We will have to rely on the cormorants instead I guess so there will have to be a mixed fleet on the west coast.
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I can't quote a SAR mission to you that required any sort of STOL capabilities. Plenty of short/soft field - but any military grade transport can do that. We practiced doing STOL all the time in the Buff - it was fun to land in 400'.
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Most short fields (I'm talking 1500-2500') don't have instrument approaches - so the lack of de-ice capability is moot. I've landed on grass strips to do a patient transfer from a medevac helicopter to FWSAR for transport to Vancouver for higher medical care following a plane crash two mountain valleys over. Retaining this type of ability is a good idea - I'm pretty even the fat Hercules can manage that sort of performance.
