WE WERE ABLE TO DETERMINE WHAT ROAD THE MOVING VEHICLE WE WERE TRACKING WAS ON JUST BY WATCHING THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SIGNAL OVERLAID ON THE AERO- COMPUTERS MOVING MAP.
Mark Gassaway, at AeroComputers, made it happen. Sometimes seeing is believing. I have had the opportunity to fly with agencies using all four systems tied together, and witnessed first-hand the increase in situational aware- ness.
training office
While tracking an ETS beacon on a flight with
Placer county sheriff’s in California, Chief Tactical Flight
Officer, Ashley Smentek, was able to deter- mine what road the moving vehicle we were tracking was on just by watching the behav- ior of the signal overlaid on the AeroComputers moving map. Our flight path was changed to intercept the vehicle at a predicted location. When we intercepted the vehicle, Deputy Smentek’s comments were,
ROTORCRAFTPROFESSIONAL
“This is so cool!” Now that some time has passed and the department has had the opportunity to track actual beacons outside of training exercises, Deputy Smentek said that the combined system gives them an increased accuracy and definitive means of telling where a signal is coming from. One of the benefits the RHOTHETA
direction finder provides over other systems is accurate, stable direction information. When you fly over a beacon, you know it. It is easy to tell where the beacon is in relationship to the aircraft. Pilot Matt Murphey, with the Texas
Department of Public Safety, told me that they are being able to pin down a stolen vehicle equipped with a LoJack transmitter
34
within three to four houses. Matt also reports that the stability of the display is one of the greatest benefits of the RT-600. Originally, the SAR DF-517 was It was capa-
designed for search and rescue.
ble of tracking 121.5 MHz, maritime channel 16, 245 MHz, and the two original COSPAS-SARSAT 406 MHz radio fre- quencies. It could also track other frequen- cies within the emergency bands. With the introduction of the RT-600 / DF-517, there are now really two models available, the RT- 600-A and the RT-600-LE. The RT-600- A still contains all of its original tracking capabilities, but now has the added ability to decode and track all 19 COSPAS-SARSAT frequencies.
It also has the ability to scan all
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52