A Taiwanese general aviation company that trains pilots for domestic and overseas commercial airlines is assisting the navy and the Coast Guard Administration in detecting Chinese military vessels near Taiwan after installing military-grade sensors on one of its twin-engine aircraft.
Taipei-based Apex Aviation (安捷航空) has equipped a Tecnam P2012 Sentinel SMP twin-engine aircraft with advanced surveillance systems under the “Goshawk Project” (蒼鷹計畫), a rare integration of military-grade sensors into a privately operated jet.
The aircraft carries two primary systems: a Star Safire 380-HDc infrared electro-optical unit made by US-based Teledyne FLIR, and an NSP-7 synthetic aperture radar system produced by US-based IMSAR LLC.
Photo: Aaron Tu, Taipei Times
It is also fitted with an automatic identification system (AIS) to track suspicious vessels before conducting more detailed reconnaissance. To carry out missions at sea, pilots first conduct wide-area radar searches with a detection range of up to 340km, Apex said.
Meanwhile, pilots can use the infrared electro-optical system to lock onto sea vessels that have not activated AIS at a distance of 25km. Through the command and control intelligence platform, encrypted reconnaissance information can be instantly produced and transmitted to decisionmakers on land and at sea, giving them time to respond with greater accuracy.
Over the past six months, the Goshawk Project has detected multiple Chinese military and research vessels, according to data from Apex Aviation. In July, one of its aircraft identified a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Type 054A guided-missile frigate operating 104km northeast of Taitung County.
Apex Aviation chairman Wilson Kao (高健祐) said that maritime reconnaissance is still primarily conducted by the navy’s P-3C anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, and by navy and coast guard vessels.
However, the real challenge is in sustaining Taiwan’s reconnaissance capacity amid the frequent “gray zone” incursions by Chinese military and coast guard ships, he said.
“It takes funding and time to establish a dedicated aviation fleet to conduct marine reconnaissance tasks,” Kao said.
“With the capacity we have now, we hope to share the government’s burden and avoid unnecessary waste of costly military resources,” he said.
The project has made significant progress over the past two years, with its results to be showcased at the three-day Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition, which opens on Thursday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, the company said.
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