Iceberg Reconnaissance 

 and Communications 



During the 1997 Ice Patrol year, 112 air- 

 craft sorties were flown in support of IIP. Of 

 these, 54 were transit flights to St. John's, 

 Newfoundland, MP's base of operations and 

 54 were ice observation flights made to lo- 

 cate the southwestern, southern, and south- 

 eastern limits of icebergs. Four logistics flights 

 were required to support and maintain the 

 patrol aircraft. Tables 4 and 5 show aircraft 

 use for the 1 997 ice year. 



MP's aerial ice reconnaissance was con- 

 ducted with radar equipped U.S. Coast Guard 

 HC-130H aircraft. The HC-130H aircraft used 

 on Ice Patrol are based at Coast Guard Air 

 Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Al- 

 though they were not used in 1997, IIP has 

 used HU-25B aircraft in past years. These 

 aircraft are stationed at Air Station Corpus 

 Christi, Texas and are available for use. How- 

 ever, the areal extent of the iceberg distribu- 



tion in 1 997 required the use of the long range 

 HC-130H aircraft. 



Since the Grand Banks region is very 

 oceanographically and meteorologically dy- 

 namic, the visibility is notoriously poor. There- 

 fore, IIP relies heavily on theAN/APS-1 35 Side 

 Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) and the AN/ 

 APS-137 Forward Looking Airborne Radar 

 (FLAR). SLAR is the primary detection sen- 

 sor while FLAR is the primary identification 

 sensor, providing the ability to distinguish tar- 

 gets as icebergs or vessels. These sensors 

 allow IIP aircraft to use a 30 nautical mile track 

 spacing when searching for icebergs. Details 

 on SLAR are in Robe et al. (1985) while de- 

 tails on FLAR are in Trivers and Murphy 

 (1995). 



IIP schedules aerial iceberg surveys ev- 

 ery other week rather than every week. This 



Table 4 

 Aircraft Usage During the 1997 Ice Year 



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