Iceberg Reconnaissance 

 and Communications 



During the 1993 Ice Patrol year, 154 

 aircraft sorties were flown in support of IIP. Of 

 these, 55 were transit flights to St. John's, 

 Newfoundland, MP's base of operations since 

 1989, and 75 were ice observation flights 

 made to locate the southwestern, southern, 

 and southeastern limits of icebergs. Seven- 

 teen logistics flights were required to support 

 and maintain the patrol aircraft. Tables 3 and 

 4 show aircraft use during the 1993 ice year. 



HP's aerial ice reconnaissance was 

 conducted with SLAR and FLAR-equipped 

 U.S. Coast Guard HC-130H and a SLAR- 

 equipped HU-25B aircraft. The HC-130H 

 aircraft used on Ice Patrol are based at Coast 

 Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Caro- 

 lina, and HU-25B aircraft at Coast Guard Air 

 Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 



This was the first operational year for 

 the FLAR, an Inverse Synthetic Aperture Ra- 

 dar (ISAR). IIP conducted a field test of the 

 iceberg detection and identification ability of 



the FLAR in 1991 and as noted before, con- 

 ducted an other test during 1993. The earlier 

 test showed the FLAR to be a promising iden- 

 tification tool although the FLAR failed to de- 

 tect some small icebergs and growlers (Ezman, 

 Murphy, Fogt, Reed, 1991). The analysis of 

 1993's data has not been completed. How- 

 ever, the operational expehence gained in 

 1 993 show the SLAR/FLAR combination to be 

 a vast improvement in iceberg identification 

 over the SLAR only system. 



The combined ability of the SLAR and 

 FLAR to detect icebergs in all weather and 

 MP's computer modelsto estimate iceberg drift 

 and deterioration enables llPto schedule aerial 

 iceberg surveys every other week rather than 

 every week. 



The HC-130H 'Hercules' aircraft has 

 been the primary platform for Ice Patrol aerial 

 reconnaissance since 1963, while the HU- 

 25B has been used since 1 988. The extended 

 iceberg distribution throughout most of the 



Table 3 

 Aircraft Used During The 1993 IIP Year 



