4 ms·

The Russian Embassy is pretty close as is the Chinese. That said, they could easily track military helicopters with or without ADS-B Out.

firesteelrain 1y ago
Easily? I suppose a surveillance radar on the roof of those embassies wouldn’t go unnoticed.
- jamessinghal 1y ago
  American embassies do this worldwide, famously spying on Angela Merkel from the Berlin Embassy (probably). [1] [1] https://www.duncancampbell.org/content/embassy-spy-centre-network https://www.duncancampbell.org/content/embassy-spy-centre-ne...
  - lm28469 1y ago
    And how exactly does it help Russia to know there are planes and helicopters flying in the US around an airport What's the next conspiracy? They have anti air weapons in embassies and wait for a military helicopter transporting a high value target? Either way it's not worth 64 lives...
    - pc86 1y ago
      It should be pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than about 45 seconds thinking about it that you can gather good information about a potential enemy by watching how they train. For military and intelligence operations you want layered security, and you don't want to make intelligence-gathering operations against you any easier than you need to. So it makes perfect sense at least up to the moment of this crash that if you're operating military training flights in an area with a lot of foreign assets that you'd disable a feature that literally broadcasts where you are with telemetry once per second. This mindset isn't conspiracy and framing it as such makes you sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. > They have anti air weapons in embassies? It'd honestly be pretty surprising if they didn't, but this is also why when countries officially go to war with each other the embassies are typically evacuated and/or evicted. > Either way it's not worth 64 lives Not a single person here or elsewhere is claiming otherwise.
    - tonyarkles 1y ago
      > They have anti air weapons in embassies and wait for a military helicopter transporting a high value target? I agree with you that it seems relatively unlikely that there would be a large weapons cache inside an embassy. I want you to consider the opposite scenario of what you're dismissing though. If an American CIA officer in Russia wanted to shoot down a helicoper, do you think it would be that difficult for them to get ahold of a rocket launcher and do so?
      - ClumsyPilot 1y ago
        So what is the scenario, Russia does <what> to cause the president to be evacuated, and hopes he will fly through this route on a Blackhawk, as opposed to any other option, places an agent with a rocket launcher along the route, hopes it gets through countermeasures and shoots down the helicopter. After this unlikely series of events, what is achieved? Do American people give up because someone killed an easily replaceable politician with bad approval rating?
- chmod775 1y ago
  You don't need radar to track aircraft with ADS-B on: The plane is actively broadcasting its position. There's ADS-B receivers the size of a USB stick - because some are USB sticks and available for 50 bucks on Amazon.
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    No, but if ADS-B is off then its not squawking unless its got like Mode-3 or Mode-S then maybe MLAT can be used.
    - jjwiseman 1y ago
      Just to be specific, PAT25 seems to have been using Mode C for an earlier portion of its flight and Mode S for the later portion.
- tonyarkles 1y ago
  https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/premiumdownloads/premium_dl_pdm_downloads/3684_0182_52/An-introduction-to-passive-radar-systems_wp_en_3684-0182-52_v0100.pdf https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/premiumdo... Passive RADAR is an incredibly cool technology. Instead of the RADAR station transmitting its own signals, it relies on nearby high-power cultural transmissions (FM radio, broadcast TV, etc) as the signal source and measures the reflections of those signals off of aircraft. Since the majority of traffic in the region would be broadcasting ADSB, you'd be able to figure out which tracks from your Passive RADAR system correspond to aircraft without ADSB.

firesteelrain 1y ago

Easily? I suppose a surveillance radar on the roof of those embassies wouldn’t go unnoticed.

jamessinghal 1y ago
American embassies do this worldwide, famously spying on Angela Merkel from the Berlin Embassy (probably). [1] [1] https://www.duncancampbell.org/content/embassy-spy-centre-network https://www.duncancampbell.org/content/embassy-spy-centre-ne...
- lm28469 1y ago
  And how exactly does it help Russia to know there are planes and helicopters flying in the US around an airport What's the next conspiracy? They have anti air weapons in embassies and wait for a military helicopter transporting a high value target? Either way it's not worth 64 lives...
  - pc86 1y ago
    It should be pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than about 45 seconds thinking about it that you can gather good information about a potential enemy by watching how they train. For military and intelligence operations you want layered security, and you don't want to make intelligence-gathering operations against you any easier than you need to. So it makes perfect sense at least up to the moment of this crash that if you're operating military training flights in an area with a lot of foreign assets that you'd disable a feature that literally broadcasts where you are with telemetry once per second. This mindset isn't conspiracy and framing it as such makes you sound like you have no idea what you're talking about. > They have anti air weapons in embassies? It'd honestly be pretty surprising if they didn't, but this is also why when countries officially go to war with each other the embassies are typically evacuated and/or evicted. > Either way it's not worth 64 lives Not a single person here or elsewhere is claiming otherwise.
  - tonyarkles 1y ago
    > They have anti air weapons in embassies and wait for a military helicopter transporting a high value target? I agree with you that it seems relatively unlikely that there would be a large weapons cache inside an embassy. I want you to consider the opposite scenario of what you're dismissing though. If an American CIA officer in Russia wanted to shoot down a helicoper, do you think it would be that difficult for them to get ahold of a rocket launcher and do so?
    - ClumsyPilot 1y ago
      So what is the scenario, Russia does <what> to cause the president to be evacuated, and hopes he will fly through this route on a Blackhawk, as opposed to any other option, places an agent with a rocket launcher along the route, hopes it gets through countermeasures and shoots down the helicopter. After this unlikely series of events, what is achieved? Do American people give up because someone killed an easily replaceable politician with bad approval rating?
chmod775 1y ago
You don't need radar to track aircraft with ADS-B on: The plane is actively broadcasting its position. There's ADS-B receivers the size of a USB stick - because some are USB sticks and available for 50 bucks on Amazon.
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  No, but if ADS-B is off then its not squawking unless its got like Mode-3 or Mode-S then maybe MLAT can be used.
  - jjwiseman 1y ago
    Just to be specific, PAT25 seems to have been using Mode C for an earlier portion of its flight and Mode S for the later portion.
tonyarkles 1y ago
https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/premiumdownloads/premium_dl_pdm_downloads/3684_0182_52/An-introduction-to-passive-radar-systems_wp_en_3684-0182-52_v0100.pdf https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/premiumdo... Passive RADAR is an incredibly cool technology. Instead of the RADAR station transmitting its own signals, it relies on nearby high-power cultural transmissions (FM radio, broadcast TV, etc) as the signal source and measures the reflections of those signals off of aircraft. Since the majority of traffic in the region would be broadcasting ADSB, you'd be able to figure out which tracks from your Passive RADAR system correspond to aircraft without ADSB.