- Surveillance Australia
Surveillance Australia Pty Ltd is an
Australia n aviation company. It is a subsidiary of National Air Support, which is itself a subsidiary of Cobham Flight Operations & Services Australia. It is primarily engaged in servicing theAustralian Customs Service Coastwatch contract, flying surveillance patrols within the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (AEEZ), but it also operates an aircraft for Tenix LADS.Operations
The aircraft fly over 20,000 hours a year of surveillance flying in the AEEZ, searching for illegal fishing vessels, people smugglers, drug importation, immigration and quarantine breaches, and also regularly assist in search and rescue operations.
Surveillance Australia has played major roles in several border protection operations, directly contributing to over 200 foreign fishing vessels being apprehended and destroyed for illegally fishing for shark fin, reef fish and dolphins in Australian waters each year.
In 2005, Surveillance Australia was awarded the $1,000,000,000 Coastwatch contract that will see their aircraft operating through to 2020. [ [http://www.cobham.com/?Section=1009&DocId=1068 "Cobham Signs A$1bn Coastwatch Contract"; Cobham plc Media Release] Retrieved:
2007 -11-11 ]Fleet and Bases
Headquartered in
Adelaide , the company has three operational bases in Cairns, Darwin and Broome. [ [http://www.surveillanceaustralia.com.au/home.asp Surveillance Australia home page.] Retrieved:2007 -11-11 ] They operate a fleet of six DHC-8-202 and four larger DHC-8-315 'Dash 8s' modified formaritime patrol and surveillance. One further Dash 8 is configured for theLADS contract.The surveillance aircraft are equipped with
Raytheon SeaVue surface search radars with additionalInverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR),Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) andMoving target indication (MTI) capability, [ [http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=149999&TICK=RTN&STORY=/www/story/03-14-2006/0004319808&EDATE=Mar+14,+2006 "Raytheon Awarded SeaVue Radar Systems Contract for Australian Coastwatch"; Raytheon Media Release.] Retrieved:2008 -02-06 ] advanced electro-optical sensors and sophisticated communications suites. [http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/AnnualReport06_07_Full.pdf Australian Customs 2007 Annual Report] Retrieved:2008 -02-05 ] They can operate day and night close to land and at low altitude. These aircraft can search an area of 110,000 km² per flight. [http://www.cobham.com/?Section=1009&DocId=1068]A state of the art surveillance information management (SIM) system, able to integrate surveillance and communication and provide real time communications to Customs headquarters in
Canberra is due to be installed and operational by October 2008.Fleet
As of September 2008 the Surveillance Australia fleet numbers 14 aircraft: [ [http://www.casa.gov.au/casadata/regsearch/airsresults.asp?VHin=&framein=all&manuin=&modelin=®holdin=®opin=Surveillance+Australia&serialin=&num_results=50&Search=Search Australian civil aircraft register search, using "Surveillance Australia" as the search parameter.] Search conducted
11 September 2008 .]* 2 Bombardier DHC-8-202 Dash 8
* 4 de Havilland Canada DHC-8-202 Dash 8
* 1 de Havilland Canada DHC-8-202 Dash 8 (LADS-equipped)
* 3 Bombardier DHC-8-315 Dash 8
* 1 de Havilland Canada DHC-8-315 Dash 8
* 3 Reims F406 Caravan IISee also
*
Australian Coastwatch
*Australian Customs Service
*Border Protection Command
*Cobham plc
*LADS
*National Jet References
External links
* [http://www.customs.gov.au Australian Customs Service]
* [http://www.cobham.com.au Cobham Flight Operations & Services Australia]
* [http://www.surveillanceaustralia.com.au Surveillance Australia]
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