Automated Flight Information Reporting helps track IAF’s ‘Round the World’ expedition
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is attempting to smash the record for the fastest flight around the world in one of the tiniest planes. The IAF is trying to circumnavigate the world in 64 days, slicing 34 days off the current 98-day record.
Pilot Wing Commander (Wing Cdr) Rahul Monga, 37, and co-pilot Wing Cdr Anil Kumar, 38, left an IAF airfield near Delhi, India on June 1st knowing this mission is one of the most dangerous they’ve faced. That’s because the aircraft’s design and weight make it quick but quirky. It weighs less than 500 kilograms, with one pilot aboard, fuel and baggage and even a slight breeze can make landings dangerous.
As a result, the two have faced many perilous approaches at remote airfields in China and Russia as sometimes torrential winds tossed the little craft up, down and sideways. At one airstrip they were just about to touch down when a powerful wind shot them 50 feet back up into the air.
The most dangerous passage to date was crossing the Bering Sea July 5th. Wing Cdr Monga was the only one flying the craft as it skimmed over those frigid waters because Kumar was replaced on the Russian leg by a local navigator, a mandatory requirement when only Russian is spoken by that country’s air controllers.
If engine troubles forced Wing Cdr Monga to ditch the plane in the Bering Sea, he would have had only six minutes to three hours to survive, depending on whether he was able to get an immersion survival suit on in time. That is where the breakthrough tracking and communications technology provided by Calgary-based Flyht, a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly traded
AeroMechanical Services Ltd. would have proved critical.
Flyht’s equipment, called an Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS) allows the IAF to constantly track the airplane in real time and it also allows the pilots to phone anyone from wherever they are in the world. Had Wing Cdr Monga been forced to ditch into those ice-cold waters, the IAF control room in Delhi could have used the AFIRS technology to tell rescue teams exactly where in the water to look.
The (IAF) launched this goodwill and record-breaking flight as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations.
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