Formålet med bloggen er å bidra til informasjon om luftfart av alle slag. Også litt om ubåter og forsvarsspørsmål. Nyheter vil du finne her også, en del på engelsk som er det mest brukte luftfartsspråket. Har du selv noe som bør komme ut, så send meg en mail til per.gram@hesbynett.no
Narrative: The helicopter struck trees and impacted residential area terrain under unknown circumstances in Ozark, Alabama. The helicopter sustained substantial damage and the sole pilot onboard received fatal injures. There were no ground injures or damage to buildings.
Eagle Aviation Academy is operating two Schweizer 269C-1's: N2074C and N9421P
Credit: MIT PhotosWhile many aviation startups are focusing on electric vertical takeoff and landing and urban air mobility, a small cadre believes extreme short takeoff and landing and regional services could be easier to certify and more economically viable in the near term.
It is a view that harks back to the 1970s and a vision of short-haul transportation using short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) airliners as an answer to the growing problems of congestion and noise at major airports. Both NASA and the FAA saw quiet, clean STOL aircraft as a way to make better use of airports that were becoming hemmed in by urbanization. But with the technology available then, the economics did not work out.
Fast-forward to the 2020s, and proponents see in electric propulsion a way to enable the potential of STOL—and see in STOL a way to unlock the benefits of electric propulsion that is less technically challenging and more economically rewarding in the near term.
Distributed electric propulsion reduces weight and cost of STOL
STOL aircraft could fit between urban air taxis and regional jets
With electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL), the opportunity is in bringing air transportation closer to the customer by enabling operations from convenient urban verti-ports. The challenges are in the energy required for vertical flight and the criticality of a propulsion system that provides both lift and flight control.
With electric STOL (eSTOL), the opportunities are in lowering the energy density and airworthiness certification hurdles. But the challenge is in providing field performance sufficiently short to enable operations from the same vertiports that eVTOL urban air taxis would use. Enter distributed electric propulsion (DEP) and powered-lift STOL, where propellers and aerodynamics interact to enable high lift at low airspeed. Together, they offer the potential for extreme STOL performance with lower weight and cost.
MIT’s 30%-scale unmanned model showed the STOL performance potential of distributed electric propulsion. Credit: MIT Photos
The Breguet 941 turboprop transport of the 1960s is a good example of both the capability and complexity of powered-lift STOL aircraft using conventional propulsion. Designed to take off in 185 m (607 ft.) carrying up to 60 people, the 941 used full-span slotted flaps to deflect the slipstream from four oversize propellers.
Power came from four Turbomeca Turmo turboprops, each with a free turbine driving a master shaft running through the wing. Connected by a shaft to each propeller, this master shaft ensured power from the engines was distributed equally to the props. If an engine failed, its free turbine was isolated, but the propeller kept turning.
The 941 first flew in 1961, and in 1964 demonstrated it could fly between heliports at Issy-les-Moulineaux in Paris and Allee Verte in downtown Brussels. The 941 and production 941S conducted two U.S. tours, in 1964-65 as the McDonnell 188 and again in 1968-69 as the McDonnell Douglas 188, including demonstrations for American and Eastern Airlines.
A Pyka electric STOL unmanned aircraft is being used for crop dusting in New Zealand. Credit: Pyka
No airline order was forthcoming, cost of operation being one factor. But research continued, and NASA in 1978 flew the Quiet Short-haul Research Aircraft (QSRA). This was a de Havilland Canada DHC-5 Buffalo transport modified with a new wing and four Avco Lycoming YF102 turbofans providing upper-surface blowing. The QSRA was retired in 1993, but it contributed to the design of the Boeing C-17.
There are electric STOL aircraft flying today. California startup Pyka is using unmanned eSTOL aircraft for crop-dusting operations in New Zealand. Powered by three 20-kW electric motors on the wing and tail, Pyka’s production aircraft can take off and land in 150 ft. and carry a 625-lb. payload. The design does not use powered lift but has a sailplane-like wing with full-span flaps for high lift at low speed. With a cruise speed of 90 mph and battery swaps between flights, the aircraft can cover 85-135 acres per hour.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Metro Hop concept for a two-seat eSTOL able to take off and land in 200 ft. and fly a 990-lb. payload 100 mi. at 250 mph. The initial application envisaged is express delivery of medical supplies from central warehouses to local hospitals, says CEO Bruno Mombrinie. Being designed for the California startup by the e-Genius electric aircraft team at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, the Metro Hop is simple in concept but has some unique features.
Faradair’s BEHA transport features a triple box wing that provides high lift at low speed. Credit: Faradair
To take off from a flight deck atop a warehouse, electric motors in the main wheels first accelerate the aircraft to 60 mph in 4-5 sec., then active landing-gear legs push the nose up to rotate for takeoff. To land with the precision required, the aircraft measures the distance to the flight deck and extends the motorized landing gear to meet the ground when over the landing mark. Wing lift is then spoiled to put weight on the wheels and brakes used to decelerate. Cargo and battery swap would be robotic.
UK startup Faradair is taking a different approach to STOL regional transport with its Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft (BEHA) concept. Designed to take off and land in under 985 ft., the BEHA has a triple box wing for high lift—three staggered lifting surfaces joined at the tips by vertical stabilizers. “Our modeling analysis shows the aircraft is still lifting at 40 kt., at 16-deg. angle-of-attack and a lift-to-drag ratio similar to a [Boeing] 747,” says Neil Cloughley, Faradair managing director.
Propulsion is provided by a 1,600-shp turbine engine and 500-kW electric motor driving a contrarotating fan in a duct that increases thrust and reduces noise as well as providing vectored thrust for flight control. Takeoff is primarily done on batteries to reduce noise and emissions, transitioning to the turbine to cruise and recharge the batteries, which provides a reserve power capability in case of engine failure, he says.
Design cruise speed is 200 kt. At a higher speed, the drag penalty from the wings and duct would be too great. But Faradair aims to compete mainly with helicopters, flying faster, farther and more efficiently with less noise. “We see the BEHA doing 90% of the mission a large helicopter can do,” Cloughley says.
The planned first member of the family is the MH1, a 55-ft.-span aircraft capable of quick change between 18 passengers, three LD3 cargo containers or 5 metric tons of payload. Faradair is completing design optimization and hopes, funding permitting, to fly a full-scale prototype by early 2024 and certify the MH1 by 2025-26. The startup has struggled to secure private funding or government support in the UK, but Cloughley says interest has picked up recently, mainly from offshore sources.
Active landing-gear legs and motorized wheels provide Metro Hop’s STOL performance. Credit: Metro Hop
John Langford, founder and former CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, has launched Electra.Aero to develop a super-STOL (SSTOL) hybrid-electric aircraft for regional mobility using DEP and powered lift. He is working with a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that has been studying SSTOL as an alternative to eVTOL for urban air mobility (UAM).
Using propulsion for both lift and control in an eVTOL raises the criticality of power failure. This requires increased redundancy and complexity, which add cost and weight to the aircraft and time to the certification process, says Christopher Courtin, a graduate student at MIT. A fixed-wing SSTOL would be comparable to existing single-engine aircraft in a failure scenario, providing an established pathway to certification, he says.
Among the benefits of SSTOL over eVTOL, Courtin lists performance and the ability to use smaller motors, leaving more weight fraction for energy storage or passenger capacity. The lower thrust-to-weight and higher lift-to-drag ratios of an SSTOL versus an eVTOL aircraft are expected to increase speed, range and payload capability.
MIT has been studying a four-seat SSTOL as an alternative to eVTOL for infrastructure-constrained UAM. “If takeoff and landing distances can be made comparable to the size of a vertiport, there may be substantial benefit to using SSTOL aircraft for many of the proposed urban air mobility missions,” Courtin told the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech conference in January.
DEP can enable extreme short-field performance by mounting propellers along the wing leading edge so that they blow the trailing-edge flaps along most of the span. Based on wind-tunnel tests, the MIT team believes takeoff and landing ground rolls of less than 100 ft. can be achieved using DEP-powered lift, short enough to be competitive with eVTOL.
“It needs a maximum lift coefficient [CLmax] of 7-12 to be feasible. That is well beyond what we can get without a blown wing,” says Courtin. “In the wind tunnel we saw a CLmax of about 9, but we were not confident we would see that in flight, so we decided to go to a subscale aircraft.”
With funding from Aurora, the MIT team in 2019 flew a 30%-scale unmanned model of their conceptual SSTOL. Weighing less than 40 lb. and with a span of 13 ft., this had eight propellers on the wing leading edge, single-slotted flaps and partially blown ailerons, as well as a conventional tail.
Blown-wing aircraft such as the Breguet 941 use wing flaps to deflect the propeller slipstream. This increases lift, both by turning the propeller jet and by suppressing the separation of airflow over the wing and flaps. Compared with turboprops, DEP allows the use of many small propellers. The small jets they produce increase blowing effectiveness. This allows use of a mechanically simple single-slotted flap, reducing the weight and cost of the high-lift system compared with previous blown-lift aircraft, he says.
The goals of MIT’s subscale testing were to determine if high lift could be achieved in flight, to assess the handling qualities and look at the effect of changing propeller diameter on the efficiency of turning the flow. Motors were evenly spaced along the wing leading edge. In takeoff mode, all eight were controlled together by a single throttle lever. In landing mode, the inner six motors—which provided most of the blowing—were controlled via a knob, while the outer pair were modulated by the throttle.
The team tested the aircraft with 9-in.-dia. two-blade and 7-in.-dia. five-blade propellers. Significantly slower flight speeds were achieved with the smaller props. “This was likely because the smaller jet is more effectively deflected by the flap, which enables more lift with lower power,” Courtin says.
At low speeds, the aircraft’s lateral handling qualities degraded, making it difficult to control. “It was hard to keep the aircraft in steady flight, which made it hard to measure CL,” he says. “But the five-blade prop gave the best high-lift performance, pretty repeatable up around a CLmax of 10.”
The subscale aircraft took off in about twice its own length, with a nearly level liftoff attitude. “This indicates that the takeoff distance of the aircraft was limited by the rotation rate that the unblown tail is able to generate at low airspeed,” Courtin says. Takeoff CLmax was not that high. “This suggests that the ground roll of this aircraft is limited by the control power of the horizontal tail,” he says.
The aircraft was difficult to handle because of low dynamic pressure over the control surfaces. At high flap deflections and CL, upwash from the flap ends induced the wing to stall at that location. As a result, a significant portion of each aileron was in separated flow, reducing roll control authority.
The tail was also a factor, its ability to trim the aircraft limiting the achievable lift coefficient. “Control strategies for this aircraft, both in how to generate sufficient control authority and how to translate pilot inputs into actuator movements, are an important area of research going forward,” says Courtin.
Langford’s Electra is working with the MIT team, led by professors Mark Drela and John Hansman, on the next steps. These will begin by flying a full-scale, two-seat concept demonstrator, within a year of COVID-19 restrictions lifting, to address control challenges and show the potential of hyper-STOL.
The team is looking at four-, nine-, 19- and 35-seaters and conducting market studies on which to launch first. Langford sees an opportunity between small urban air taxis and large regional jets for aircraft that can take off “in a couple of hundred feet” and fly 50-500-mi. stage lengths, a market now dominated by automobiles. The short-haul transportation promise of the Breguet 941 may yet be realized.
Narrative: Following a loss of engine power, the aircraft force landed to open field terrain in Guernsey County east of Cambridge, Ohio. The airplane sustained apparent substantial damage upon impact with surrounding trees and the sole pilot onboard received serious injuries which later proved fatal.
Her kommer noen bilder av gamle LN-SUB tatt i hangaren til Everts Air Cargo i Fairbanks . Flyet er i ferd med å klargjøres for overflygingen til Sola og skal ut på en check flight i morgen etter vedlikehold og forberedelser til fergeflygingen. Deretter skal 16 hundebur lastes inn før huskyene til Thomas Wærner lastes ombord natt til 1.juni Alaska tid. Vi viser ikke hele flyet enda , noe skal være en overraskelse. Følg med de neste døgnene.
Så på direktesendingen og alt gikk som smurt denne gang. Stage 1 landet tilbake slik vi har blitt vant til å se det, og Doug og Bob seiler nå mot ISS med dokking om hele 19 timer. Det skyldes utsjekk av utstyr og systemer, samt 8t søvn. Det er 9 år siden siden forrige bemannede rakettoppskytning fra USA, og aller første gang at en sivil kommersiell aktør er med sammen med NASA.
Elon Musk drømmer om Mars.......
– Fly er viktig for næringslivet og for folk i et langstrakt land som Norge. Mange er avhengig av å fly for å komme seg til sykehus eller andre viktige avtaler, og det har derfor vært viktig for regjeringen å sikre et grunntilbud av flyruter i den situasjonen vi har vært i de siste månedene. Det er usikkert hvor lenge denne situasjonen vil vare i tid. Derfor tar regjeringen nå høyde for at vi i tiden framover skal kjøpe flyruter over hele landet, og foreslår å øke bevilgningen til kjøp av innenlandske flyruter med minst 1 milliard kroner. Sammen skal vi ta Norge ut av krisen og fremover, sier samferdselsminister Knut Arild Hareide.
Som følge av virusutbruddet har etterspørselen etter personreiser med fly falt betydelig, og det kommersielle grunnlaget for store deler av norsk personflytrafikk har falt bort. Derfor har regjeringen kjøpt flyruter på strekninger hvor det midlertidig ikke var grunnlag for kommersiell drift, for å kunne opprettholde et grunnleggende tilbud av flytransport gjennom en periode med redusert reiseaktivitet. Denne ordningen er foreløpig forlenget til 30. juni.
Regjeringen har gjennom hele krisen hatt tett dialog med flyselskapene om deres situasjon og behov for tiltak.
- Sammen med Stortinget har vi jobbet hardt for å få på plass store og små tiltak for å avhjelpe situasjonen: fritak fra en rekke avgifter, statlig kjøp av flyruter for å sikre et minimumstilbud, og ikke minst statlig lånegarantier på opptil 6 milliarder kroner. Og nå forlenger vi flere av disse tiltakene, sier Knut Arild Hareide.
Regjeringen foreslår å ta høyde for å inngå nye avtaler om kjøp av flyruter, ved å øke bevilgningen med 1 milliard kroner. Det er usikkert hvor lenge det vil være behov for å kjøpe flyruter. Regjeringen foreslår derfor at det vil være mulig å overskride bevilgningen med inntil 300 millioner kroner, dersom det er nødvendig å forlenge perioden med flyrutekjøp som følge av smitteverntiltak. Det vurderes fortløpende når grunntilbudet på aktuelle ruter kan dekkes av markedet selv.
Videre kan det være behov for merkompensasjon til operatørene av regionale ruter (FOT-ruter) i tiden framover også. Nivået på kompensasjonen vil bli fastsatt gjennom reforhandling av statens avtaler med de regionale ruteoperatørene.
De fleste tiltakene videreføres, mens fritaket fra passasjeravgift og sikkerhetsavgift ikke videreføres etter 1. juli.
- Med denne milliarden forlenger vi mulighet til å kjøpe ruter, noe som er viktig for alle reisende og for å holde flytrafikken i gang. Veien ut av krisen handler om å skape flere jobber og å få flere permitterte tilbake i jobb. Å ha en jobb er verdifullt for den enkelte, men også for familiene og for samfunnet, sier Knut Arild Hareide.
Weather
is less than ideal for Saturday's SpaceX launch
(CNN)Weather again threatens the launch window for a SpaceX rocket to carry
NASA astronauts on the first crewed spaceflight to take off from US soil in
nearly a decade.
"Saturday and Sunday could turn out to have very similar weather as
Wednesday did," CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said, referring to this
week's scrubbed launch. "We may be waiting on a game-time decision again
this weekend."
The next launch opportunity is Saturday at 3:22 p.m. ET, with a backup window
of 3 p.m. ET on Sunday.
But the 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron says the odds do not look favorable.
Right now, it forecasts only a 40% chance of favorable conditions for
Saturday's attempt.
"The primary concerns are flight through precipitation, as well as the
anvil and cumulus cloud rules associated with the afternoon convection," according
to the official weather squadron forecast Thursday morning.
There had been a 50/50 chance Wednesday that the weather would clear, and 10
extra minutes might have given the launch team the green light. But the timing
had to be just right for a proper rendezvous with the International Space
Station.
"Weather is the one thing that we actually cannot control on our missions
so unfortunately, it did cause us to scrub today," tweeted NASA.
During this time of the year, it is not uncommon for a sea-breeze along the
east coast of Florida to cause pop-up afternoon thunderstorms.
It isn't always easy to forecast precisely where one of these storms will pop
up. Still, forecasters can look at the overall pattern to see if conditions
present themselves for thunderstorm development.
This overall pattern is why the weather squadron is giving a 60% chance of
unfavorable conditions on Saturday. Within 24 hours of the launch, the forecast
models will be detailed enough to give a bit better idea of where the storms
will build.
Sunday has rain chances in the forecast as well, albeit a slightly lower chance
than on Saturday, Brink said Thursday. The weather squadron also has 40% chance
of favorable conditions on Sunday.
Rocket-triggered
lightning is a launch hazard
A whole team of meteorologists is on hand from the 45th Space Wing and SpaceX
to determine whether the weather will scrub the launch. As on Wednesday, the
decision can be made right up to liftoff.
During the NASA broadcast on Wednesday, disappointment was evident as the
weather team called it a no-go for launch.
Launch weather officers must be "clear and convinced" that no NASA
"criteria are violated in order to give the weather GO call for
launch," the 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron states.
For example, lightning in the area will cancel a flight, as will a cloud with a
large enough electrical field to produce rocket-triggered lightning. This
happens when a giant spark of electricity occurs when a large rocket flies
through a strong enough atmospheric electric field.
The electric field needed to induce rocket-triggered lightning is much lower
than for natural lightning.
"Either type of lightning could cause serious damage to the rocket and
endanger public safety," the weather squadron states.
Forecasters also have
to monitor the winds.
If there is a sustained wind of 30 mph or more at 162 feet above the launch
pad, the mission will be canceled.
The weather squadron also has to monitor the weather downrange because if the
Crew Dragon capsule encounters a problem, it needs to have a safe splashdown
location.
Earlier this month, NASA had to delay its launch of the Atlas V rocket, US
Space Force mission due to Tropical Storm Arthur. It launched the following day
after the storm cleared out.
Crashed
Pakistan Plane First Tried to Land Without Landing Gear at 203 Miles Per Hour
By Alan Levin
A deadly plane crash in Pakistan is prompting questions about how the crew
could touch down without landing gear when their sophisticated jetliner was
bristling with equipment to prevent pilots from doing just that.
After an abrupt descent that had unnerved air-traffic controllers, the pilots
of the Pakistan International Airlines Corp. jet on Friday briefly put the
aircraft on the runway without the landing gear, grinding along on its two
engines at a speed of more than 327 kilometers (203 miles) per hour, according
to preliminary data.
The pilots aborted the landing attempt, climbing back into the sky, but
reported shortly afterward they'd lost power. The Airbus SE A320 apparently
glided into a neighborhood as pilots were attempting to return to the same
runway, killing 97 of 99 people aboard.
"It is unbelievable to me that an airline crew on a jet like an Airbus,
with all the warning systems, would attempt to land the plane without the gear
extended," said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who formerly flew
the A320 as a U.S. airline pilot.
In addition to checklists designed to make sure pilots don't attempt to touch
down without the landing gear, the jetliner has multiple warning systems
designed to alert crews if they somehow forget or the gear aren't working.
"The airplane is not happy that you're this close to the ground without
the gear extended," said Cox, who is president of consulting company
Safety Operating Systems.
It's not yet clear why the two jet engines quit after functioning well enough
for about two minutes to lift them about 3,000 feet (915 meters) above the
runway. Engines have become so reliable that losing two at the same time is
almost always because of some common factor, such as damage from hitting a
runway or a problem with the fuel supply.
Regardless, the bizarre landing attempt - which was carried out without any
indication from the crew that they'd had an emergency during their initial
descent - either triggered the accident or was a catalyst that worsened the
situation, according to Cox and others who have studied crashes.
A Pakistan International spokesman declined to comment on "incomplete
information." An Airbus spokesman referred queries to Pakistani
authorities. Civil aviation spokesman Abdul Sattar Khokhar didn't respond to a
call on his mobile phone.
As Flight 8303 from Lahore approached Karachi's Jinnah International Airport
last Friday afternoon, air-traffic controllers were concerned that it wasn't
descending on the proper path, according to a report cited by Sky News. A
controller cautioned the pilots that they were "high" and urged them
to adjust, according to the leaked preliminary report.
Turn Back
"We are comfortable. We can make it," the pilot can be heard telling
the controller, according to a recording of Karachi's air-traffic radio posted
on the LiveATC.net website.
Twice as the plane neared the runway, a controller told pilots to turn and
break off their approach, according to the report. Again, the pilot declined,
responding on the radio he was "comfortable" and was prepared to land
on runway 25-Left.
At no point did the pilots say they had a problem with their landing gear or
any other type of emergency, according to the radio calls.
Approaching a runway with such a rapid descent, which often leads to
higher-than-recommended speeds, is a harbinger of danger, according to decades
of warnings from investigative agencies such as the U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board and the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation.
After the controllers finally cleared the plane to land - despite their earlier
warnings - the pilot replied, "Roger." In the background, the sound
of a cockpit warning chime can be heard.
Too Much Energy
The jetliner was well above the normal speed as it neared the runway, said
Jeffrey Guzzetti, the former chief accident investigator for the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration. It was traveling at roughly 250 miles an hour at about
1,000 feet above the ground, according to the tracking website, Flightradar24.
That's more than 50 miles per hour faster than is typical for jets like the
A320, Guzzetti said.
"They have too much energy for a normal landing," he said.
It not only increases the chances of skidding off the runway, but puts
additional pressure on the pilots to slow the big jet and can lead to other
things going wrong.
Flightradar24's data suggests that the jet was traveling at 375 kilometers (233
miles) per hour when it reached the runway and slowed to about 327 kilometers
per hour as it lifted off. The data hasn't been validated by investigators.
The airline said Thursday that the cockpit voice recorder, a key to piecing
together the events, had been found in the debris from the wreckage. The flight
data recorder was located earlier.
While it's possible that in the chaos and confusion they might have have
forgotten about the landing gear, it's still puzzling, according to Guzzetti
and Cox.
Computer System
The A320's on-board computer system issues both a warning sound and illuminates
a light to draw attention to a text message if the gear isn't out as the plane
nears the ground.
A separate safety system designed to prevent aircraft from inadvertently
striking the ground also senses when the gear isn't deployed before landing.
Its recorded voice repeatedly says "Too low, gear" if the problem
continues.
Before-landing check lists also require crews to verify that the plane's
instruments show the gear is locked into place.
"It's very unusual in modern transport category aircraft to have a no-gear
landing, just because the checklist and the warnings that go off,"
Guzzetti said.
At about 2:34 p.m., the plane slammed onto the runway. Its engines left a
series of black smudge marks, starting at 4,500 feet from the start of the
landing strip, according to video of the runway broadcast by news outlets. It
shows three separate patches, as if the plane skipped into the air between
impacts.
"Going around," a pilot on the jet told controllers, the term for
aborting a landing and taking off again.
The plane climbed about 3,000 feet, but couldn't hold its altitude, according
to the radio transmissions and flight data.
"Sir, we have lost engines," a pilot said. Then, 30 seconds later, he
said, "Mayday. Mayday. Mayday."
Airbus has announced that its A400M Atlas military transport turboprop has received its automatic low-level flight certification. The certification covers operations in visual meteorological conditions with a second certification phase to include instrumental meteorological conditions planned for 2021. The certification campaign involved transitions from low-level flight to operations such as aerial delivery and flights down to 500 feet AGL.
“Inherent to the fighter aircraft world, and as a unique capability for a military transport aircraft, the Automatic Low Level Flights improves the A400M’s terrain masking and survivability, making the aircraft less detectable in hostile areas and less susceptible to threats when cruising towards key military operations like aerial delivery, air-to-air refueling, logistic or other specific special operations,” Airbus said.
The A400M program was launched in May 2003 and the aircraft flew for the first time on Dec. 11, 2009. Designed as a dual-role transport and tanker, the Atlas has a range of 4,800 NM and a top speed of Mach 0.72, and is capable of carrying payloads of up to 37 tons. The aircraft is powered by four EuroProp International TP 400 engines. There are currently 90 A400Ms in operation.
The narco-submarine may not have been expecting a guided missile destroyer to be bearing down on it. Until April this year, U.S. Navy warships were less often involved in drug submarine busts on the high seas. But the Trump administration’s new enhanced counter-narcotics operations has changed that, as a narco-sub found out on May 14. This may mark the start of a new age in narco-submarine interdiction.
The Narco Submarine was actually a low-profile vessel (LPV). It is relatively fast and hard to ... [+]
H I SUTTON (PHOTO USCG)
Despite its inherent stealthiness the vessel was detected by a P-8 Poseidon from the VP-26 ‘Tridents’ squadron of the U.S. Navy. A destroyer, USS Pinckney, with a U.S. Coast Guard team aboard, then moved into position to intercept it. The destroyer’s SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters and fast boats made the interdiction. This was the first reported narco-sub seizure since President Trump announced 'enhanced counter-narcotics operations' on April 1.
Aboard the narco sub were 1.5 tons of cocaine. This would be 1,400 individual bricks, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), and bundled together in batches of 20 as bales. The load had an estimated wholesale value in excess of $23 million. This size of cargo is typical although much larger have been known.
Like most so-called narco submarines the craft could not actually submerge. It was a low-profile vessel, meaning that it is barely visible above the surface. This makes it very hard to detect, especially by eye. The exact type is a Very Slender Vessel (VSV), which is one of four main categories of narco-sub. The full taxonomy is LPV-OM-VSV meaning Low Profile Vessel, Outboard Motors, Very Slender Vessel. By my count this is the 40th narco-VSV to have been reported since they first emerged in 2017.
The USS Pinckney (DDG 91) is one of several warships now operating as part of U.S. Southern Command's efforts to stem the flow of drugs from South America. A significant portion of it gets loaded aboard narco-submarines in the jungle estuaries of Colombia’s western coast. They sail up to Mexico and from there it flows overland into the United States. The Coast Guard and partner nations have made many seizures up to this point, but it is many years since the the Navy was deployed in this way.
This may be the first narco-submarine reported since the beginning of the enhanced operations, but there have been other drug seizures. On April 26 a joint effort by U.S. Coast Guard and Panamanian forces seized 83 bales of cocaine from a go-fast boat in the Caribbean. And on May 20 the Coast Guard cutter Active (WMEC-618) seized 2,000lb of cocaine aboard a ‘go-slow’ Panga-type fishing boat in the Pacific.
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