LIMA 2015: Indonesian Maritime Surveillance Aircraft Embark on Thales’ Airborne Maritime Situation Control Technology

The Airborne Maritime Situation and Control System (AMASCOS) Indonesia selected for its Indonesian Aerospace (IAe)-built CN235-220 maritime surveillance aircraft provides the aircraft with the capability that is needed for the country’s Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) operations. The solution supplied by Thales can also be employed for an array of other modern mission scenarios, including vessel search and identification; Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) patrol; drug, smuggling and piracy control; search and rescue (SAR); disaster surveillance; and maritime patrol roles. Visiting one of the three Indonesian Navy CN235-220s at LIMA 2015, MILITARY TECHNOLOGY learned that the sensors adapted to the aircraft in particular include a FLIR Systems Star SAFIRE III EO/IR turret, Thales’ OCEAN MASTER 400 radar, and the same company’s TOTEM 3000 Inertial Reference System. As said, the single aircraft operated by the Indonesian Air Force also carries a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR); fitment of an RWR to the three Indonesian Navy airframes will be an option for future upgrades. Jean-Michel Eustache, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Marketing Manager at Thales Airborne Systems, speaking to MILITARY TECHNOLOGY at LIMA 2015, outlined AMASCOS’ unique performance characteristics: “AMASCOS integrates a number of sensors that [can] include an electro-optical/infrared [EO/IR] sensor turret like Thales Optronique’s CHLIO system, Thales’ OCEAN MASTER search radar, an RWR like Elettronica’s ALR 733 device, and a Magnetic Anomaly Detector [MAD] for detecting submarines. The latter can be CAE’s AN/ASQ-508 system. According to him, AMASCOS has a modular architecture, allowing the system to be easily adapted to smaller aircraft performing surveillance from a single console, to larger aircraft equipped with four or five consoles. AMASCOS has been integrated on a variety of aircraft to date, including – besides CN235/220s – Alenia ATR 72s (Turkey); Beechcraft KING AIRs (Malaysia); Bombardier DASH 8s (United Arab Emirates Air Force); Dassault Falcon 900s (Japan); and Gulfstream IVs (Turkey).

The Indonesian Navy CN235-220 maritime surveillance aircraft (left) have two AMASCOS 200 consoles with two screens each (below) that are redundant and interchangeable. (All photos: STN)