Steffan Watkins Profile picture
Jul 3 β€’ 4 tweets β€’ 3 min read
πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Assessment of Royal Australian Air Force aircraft readiness (some of them anyway), extrapolating from their Mode-S transponder RF emissions, compiled 2022-07-03.

Aircraft that haven't flown in over a month are believed to be (temporarily?) out of service. #RAAF ImageImageImageImage
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ I'm using the same methodology as the #RCAF assessments I've published.

In comparison, please notice it's completely normal to have some (small) number of aircraft out of the pool for maintenance, almost all the time, for almost all aircraft.
Some of the identified aircraft haven't yet been delivered to the RAAF, so they're not actually *out* of service, they haven't yet come *into* service - I didn't want to make a new category, so I just recycled "out of service". Apologies for any confusion.
πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Open source-derived Royal Australian Air Force assessment of readiness, based on their Mode-S transponder RF emissions.

β€£ E-7A corrected to 6 aircraft h/t @Benfeltondef
β€£ I have 2 extra King Airs listed. πŸ€”
β€£ AP-3Cs are being phased out; not sure exactly how many are left ImageImageImage

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More from @steffanwatkins

Jul 6
I've been tracking aircraft by exploiting their transponder emissions for years, and I still see new things every day. I'm only one of many of people who exploit open sources to tease out untold stories; some people moonlight, and for some it's their day job. Image
Everyone has their own unique interest. My desire is to show the public, and especially journalists, where the seam between publicly available information and the unknown exists. I have the impression most people don't know how much is at their fingertips in 2022. Image
The sort of analysis that would previously only be accessible to the intelligence community can be assembled by ordinary citizens with no military-specific training, just access to the right tools (Google Docs, Earth), and publicly available data.
Read 14 tweets
Jun 29
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ Latest assessment of CH-149 Cormorant distribution and readiness based on their Mode-S transponder emissions.

Summary:
β€£ 3 at #CFBGreenwood
β€£ 2 at #CFBGander
β€£ 3 at #CFBComox

Meaning, 43% of the #RCAF CH-149 Cormorant helicopters are up on blocks.

#103Sqn #413Sqn #442Sqn
43% laid up and out of commission?

Is that bad?

It's not good.

Thankfully the Cormorant Mid-Life Upgrade is underway, scheduled to be completely finished by 2028, but they haven't awarded the contract yet...
I thought it was Leonardo that couldn't follow basic instructions and misconfigured almost all their transponders in the #RCAF CH-149 Cormorant fleet, but that's none of my business, I could be wrong, and I haven't seen that investigation the RCAF promised either. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ
Read 4 tweets
Jun 29
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ In June the #RCAF participated in a Search and Rescue exercise based out of Lajes, in The Azores, and for some reason didn't think the Canadian public wanted to know, so they didn't tell anyone anything.

It might have been part of #ASAREX #ASAREX22 #ASAREX2022, I can't tell.
Here is video, part of the exercise filmed by one of the locals. (h/t @Dapotayto1 for the link!)

[ ⚠️ I INCLUDED IMPRECISE DATA ON PURPOSE ]

I'm unclear when the exercise started or ended, but their call sign suggests they began to prepare in early June

#CFC2127
2022-06-06 Between Greenwood/Summerside
2022-06-15 Over the Bay of Fundy
2022-06-18 To Lajes
2022-06-19 To Lajes
Read 4 tweets
Jun 28
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦βš“οΈ You tease! There are five (5) CH-148 Cyclone detachments deployed with Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class ships? Okay, let's enumerate them.
The entire CH-148 fleet uses Mode-S, so we need to use MLAT to geolocate their positions; at sea it's hard to find four receivers to geolocate with MLAT.

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b41d,c…
Read 9 tweets
Jun 24
You know what I haven't seen fly lately? US-registered #N330TT shell company-owned, related to MAG Aerospace. That's the famous ISR King Air that #CANSOFCOM contracted to conduct "training" (with their ADS-B transponder off) over Ottawa.

#A3978A
globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a3978a&l… ImageImage
Normal aircraft cannot degrade their transponder emissions and go from using ADS-B (broadcasting their exact location) to simple Mode-S (no location broadcast) only a day apart; it's a signature of a spook plane, and I thank them for a great example of one
globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a3978a&l… Image
Here we see what ISR training looks like, hours of precise orbits around a target. They're using Mode-S, so the jaggy lines are from multilateration slop; their flight path is actually very smooth, the jaggies are just a sensor anomaly.

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a3978a&l… Image
Read 6 tweets
May 4
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ It should be pretty easy to prove the American-registered ISR aircraft conducting surveillance over Ottawa in late January and early February was not related to the convoy. A course plan? Any documentation re: booking the training?
(Skip ahead to 35:03)
A timeline of the "trucker" occupation of Ottawa from CTV πŸ‘‡
ctvnews.ca/canada/freedom…
2022-01-25
#N330TT appears out of nowhere over Metcalf at 3000ft, lands at #YOW; it made it that far without being detected by open source flight trackers. That's suspicious; private aircraft can't do that.
We know now it's a spook plane, not just private.
globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a3978a&l…
Read 28 tweets

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