Avantix Flashhawk fits to Diamond DA62 special mission aircraft

Aligned with the official launch of Avantix’s Flashhawk, Diamond Aircraft completed its design study to approve the capability of the Flashhawk system on the DA62 Special Mission Aircraft. According to the manufacturer, the FlashHawk is a passive airborne solution aimed at precisely and instantly geolocating any terrestrial telecommunication emitter (in the 30 MHz - 3 GHz spectrum) to provide a tactical view of the situation to operators. FlashHawk can be integrated underneath an MPP propeller plane, providing 360° coverage around the plane in azimuth and elevation up to the horizon, allowing instant 3D geolocation without blind spots.

A significant requirement of geolocation missions is the long endurance capability to generate as many data as possible to be able to lead over into a high accurate profiling of the hot spot scenario. The other minimum requirement is the qualification to operate as silent as possible to remain undetected to be able to generate as most real data of behavior of the target as possible. Those two are perfectly matched in both special mission platforms, DA42 MPP as well as DA62 MPP, where the airplanes at 3,000ft AGL operate below a noticeable noise level. An average airborne mission time between six and eight hours is very supportive to the overall mission planning, including JetA1 fuel usage, IFR single pilot operation and a civil aircraft certification.       

Diamond’s technical manager, Stefan Haim: “The system showed a very good performance in quickly locating targets, in azimuth and elevation. The detection time was very fast and the shown accuracy was within 13m. Furthermore, it provides a high coverage, so that you do not need to circle extensively in the mission area.  Flashhawk will be a great extension to our SIGINT portfolio, SWaP and operational altitude fits perfectly to our DA62 MPP and in combination with a high performance EO/IR gimbal you will able to generate more data in less time. The GUI was easy to handle (English and French version available) and filters (for detecting specific frequencies) can be easily configured on ground before the preflight briefing or if necessary, during flight.”