HUNY BADGER AMERICA’S FREEDOM FIGHTERS –
The U.S. Air Force WC-135C Constant Phoenix Nuclear explosion “sniffer” has arrived in Japan.
The aircraft was deployed to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, to monitor Kim Jong Un nuke tests, the Nikkei media outlet reported based on talks with a senior Japan Self Defense Forces official.
The aircraft was supposed to arrive at its Forward Operating Base last month but it was forced to perform an emergency landing at Sultan Iskandar Muda airport in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on its way to Japan, on Mar. 24, following an engine failure.
The two WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft in service today (out of 10 examples operated since the 1960s) are Boeing C-135 transport and support planes derivative belonging to the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron from Offutt Air Force Base, with mission crews staffed by Detachment 1 from the Air Force Technical Applications Center, Military.com reports.
The Constant Phoenix, known as the “sniffer” or “weather bird” by its crews, can carry up to 33 personnel.
Constant Phoenix flies in direct support of the U.S. Atomic Energy Detection System, a global network of nuclear detection sensors that monitor underground, underwater, space-based or atmospheric events. As the sole agency in the Department of Defense tasked with this mission, AFTAC’s role in nuclear event detection is critical to senior decision makers in the U.S. government, says the Air Force.
“Our aircraft is equipped with external flow devices that allow us to collect airborne particulate on filter paper and a compressor system for whole air samples,” said Tech. Sgt. Matthew Wilkens, a 9S100 and airborne operations section chief in a recent release. “The particulate samples are collected using a device that works like an old Wurlitzer jukebox. An arm grabs the paper from its slot and moves it to the exterior of the fuselage. After exposure, it is returned to the filter magazine where a new paper is selected for use. It’s a simple, yet very effective, concept.”
According to the Washington Post, a U.S. defense official confirmed that the WC-135 Constant Phoenix atmospheric collections aircraft will be used to detect the amount of radiation from North Korea’s latest nuclear bomb detonation.
Blocking of information about aircraft flying in U.S. national airspace has become difficult, despite the FAA’s current blocking program. This program, which replaced the previous Block Aircraft Registration Request (Barr) system, relies on flight-tracking providers’ agreeing to block information at operators’ requests in exchange for being able to tap into the FAA’s Aircraft Situation Display to Industry (ASDI) data feed.
The problem with blocking is that simple sub-$100 hobbyist receivers can detect position, speed and identification information by receiving broadcasts from mode-S transponders and ADS-B out transmitters. None of this information is in any way encrypted, and hobbyists can share the information gathered on their receivers to create a network of flight-tracking information. Flight-tracking companies can also use information from receivers, as does FlightAware with its PiAware receiver and Passur with its own receiver network, but FlightAware, Passur, FlightRadar24 and others participate in the agreement to withhold information on blocked aircraft.
Not so ADS-B Exchange. This website was put up by pilot Dan Streufert last year. “This is really just a hobby,” he told AIN. “I got interested in aircraft tracking with PiAware and found that I could expand on that. I threw the site up for the heck of it.”
(h/t Stars and Stripes)
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