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SPIES IN THE SKY SPOT DRUG RUNNERS

Photos: Paul Marshall & David Hardy

Off to trail the baddies with a Wing and a prayer!

The Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force visited Mae Ngat Dam off the Chiang Dao road with 12 other senior officers to witness an imaginary “drug bust” of criminals moving drugs over water and through jungle.
This action, the second in a series of successful tests, is code named COASTS, Coalition Operating Area Surveillance Targeting System. It involved aerial and ground surveillance by digital still and video cameras downlinking live feed to a bank of 10 laptop computers networking together in the Control Pavilion on the Mae Ngat Dam, an hour’s drive north of Chiangmai.

Last minute prep of a model helicopter complete with camera.

From this control centre, live video feed was directed to Wing 41 at Chiangmai Air Force Base, then to Don Muang Air Force Base and on to Monterey, California, to the US Naval Post Graduate School where the results of testing will be analysed and conclusions made on the trials.
Radio controlled planes and helicopters, ‘Unmanned Air Vehicles’ as they’re designated – and ground based digital cameras were deployed for live online surveillance of the “bad guys”. The models, with digital cameras fitted, were piloted by US Navy and civilian personnel. The Naval officers were from the Monterey school and the civilians – a Thai and an American – are both professional model flight instructors in their own right. Both use very successful methods of instruction with a high graduation rate from novice to accomplished pilot.

Local flying instuctor ‘Chiangmai Charlie’shows off his favourite in the Pavilion.

All the various elements of a week’s testing were brought together in a grand finale scenario. This started with 3 “long tail boats” with bad guys aboard cruising along from the dam headwaters, shadowed by a speedboat rented from the Dam authorities for the day and manned by the good guys.
As the baddies approached, a tethered helium balloon at an altitude of 4,000 feet with a digital camera attached picked them up and automatically alerted a battery powered radio controlled “wing” to be launched and shadow the long tail boats through the mid channel of the dam. This swept wing was piloted by Ray Smith, a US civilian from Monterey who runs his own fixed wing model flight training school. The swept wing model was fitted with a digital camera to send live video feed.

Ray doesn’t land the Wing, he catches it!

As the baddies neared the shore, and out of sight of Ray, Control Pavilion officers watching their laptop monitors, then directed a model helicopter with GPS to take off and keep the baddies in view. The chopper pilot was Supachai ‘Charlie’ Luxsangvilai, a Thai who is Chief Flying Instructor of helicopters and fixed wing models at Chiangmai Radio Control Flying Club. The Mikado LOBO 24 model is made in Germany, and this one was heavily modified and loaded with 12 pounds of extra digital gear.
Charlie handled the take off and then, in co-ordination with Lt Commander Steve Padget on his laptop, control was passed to the laptop and GPS control. The chopper was flying under GPS control, ie totally pilotless, which could be over-ridden on the laptop by Steve. For landing, control was passed back by Steve to Charlie.
The chopper hovered on station within range of the baddies' landing point with a video record being made of the “parcel of substance” being passed from the boat baddies to baddies on the shore. The chopper could also be directed from the laptop to proceed to other selected sites to get a different or better view of the action.
The laptops at Pavilion Control then showed the handover of the “package”, now recorded as evidence, to bad guys in a white mini-bus. Then, a team of armed “agents” (actually Royal Thai Navy Marines) were instructed to trail and apprehend the baddies with the bad stuff on them. This group of baddies did not resist the arresting officers.

The 'baddies' were taken away at gun point.

In a second scenario, another group of baddies did resist arrest using small arms fire (blanks of course!) and tried to escape into the surrounding jungle. Their movements were detected and recorded at all times via ground based remote operable digital cameras. When they “refused to give themselves up”, Pavilion Command called in 2 loitering L-39 Delphine jets of the Royal Thai Air Force which just happened to be patrolling just over the hill. In a dramatic low level pass over the dam wall, these totally full size, totally serious fighter-bombers blasted the baddies and their stuff into smoke! End of bad guys – end of mission!
Well, nothing was actually dropped from the planes of course, but small fires on the ground showed a small sample of what the real thing might have looked like. You have to be a government to get a Delphine, but all the other equipment used in these trials is commercially available off the shelf.
Flying footnotes
Ray has a radio control school in Monterey where learners and experienced model plane pilots beat a path to his door from all over the world. He demands a high success rate of pilots graduating from his courses as fully competent pilots.
His technique is to put his students through concentrated flying sessions focusing on learning successful landings. Ray’s concept is: “If you can’t land without crashing, you can’t fly again until repairs are done!” His website is very interesting with details of his flying field, methods of teaching, fleet of trainer models and list of graduates. See http://www.hobbiesaloft.com
‘Chiangmai Charlie’, as he is affectionately - and respectfully - known by the US personnel has a similar if less rigorous (to the newby) approach to teaching radio control flying. Charlie provides everything needed to fly – the model with radio, the fuel and tuition – for a very modest fee. The student just pays for a tank of fuel which lasts about 20–25 minutes. Students come to Charlie from all over the world: USA, Canada, UK, Holland, Belgium, Australia and Japan. Charlie has a model shop at the Club and manages the flying field and club membership as well. He does not have a website or email but directions to the flying field may be found at www.chiangmaiexpatsclub.com (scroll down to RC Models & Flying) or contact me at rcav8r@loxinfo.co.th.
The Royal Thai Army is interested in COASTS and wishes to conduct similar trials next year, their first phase starting in late March 2007.

Writer of this feature, fixed wing flying enthusiast Malcolm Logan (above) acted as liaison between the local club and the visiting military.

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