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Steffan Watkins Profile picture
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Dec 8 β€’ 7 tweets β€’ 5 min read
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦βš”οΈ Can we figure out which aircraft brought the #CANSOFCOM members back from Niger who were deployed on #OpNABERIUS πŸ‡³πŸ‡¬?
If the person in charge was trying to be nice they would have sent something comfortable, like a CC-150 Polaris... did they? Let's look.

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b355,c…
I checked back to 2022-11-01, and of course not; these are the elite Canadian ninjas of CANSOFCOM, they don't need to be comfortable.

Let's see if they stuffed them on the back of a CC-177 Globemaster III with their gear.

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b3ff,c…
I'm going to say, probably.

Check out #RCAF CC-177 177705 #C2B3FF call sign #CFC4071. On 2022-12-04 they flew into darkest Africa, and on 2022-12-05 they flew straight back to #CFBTrenton. Looks plausible.
What about the CC-130J Hercules fleet?

I can't think of a more miserable way to fly...

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b52b,c…
I don't think they used an #RCAF CC-130J Hercules, there hasn't been one in that area of the world for over a month.

Put my chips on #CFC4071.

I think that nails it down nicely! h/t @fabsenbln

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More from @steffanwatkins

Steffan Watkins Profile picture
Dec 8
πŸ–• I was using that feature. 🀬
If you used the Moments I made, tracking entire categories of planes, you better bookmark them or save the links elsewhere before they're gone. I used these all the time. Elon continues to work hard to remove useful features and drive content creators away from Twitter.
πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

twitter.com/i/events/13121…
Read 8 tweets
Steffan Watkins Profile picture
Dec 8
Charter? πŸ€”
Interesting; DND is using 9H-TQ #4D2372, I will need to look up the contract for that. Was it open to bids? What is the scope of the contract? It's a Maltese company, Hi Fly Malta, who operate the plane, not a Canadian company. How did that happen? πŸ€”

*9H-TQP
Read 5 tweets
Steffan Watkins Profile picture
Dec 7
πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦ It's hard to find more than one matching flight path near Tillsonburg (my back still aches when I hear that word) recently.

Maybe this is #RCAF CC-130H 130344 call sign #TIGR344 on 2022-12-05?

Not sure if @JRCCTrentCCCOS will confirm. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

inaccurate.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2afbd&l…
#C2AFBD
Here's your dose of Canadian content:

Stompin' Tom Connors - Tillsonburg
I think I need to look at the flight data again; this was from 2022-11-30

Read 6 tweets
Steffan Watkins Profile picture
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.
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.
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
Steffan Watkins Profile picture
Jul 3
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.
Read 4 tweets
Steffan Watkins Profile picture
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

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