Border Protector Michael J. Fisher - KMI Media Group

get slow enough in a high endurance mission or it has great
dash speeds to get to an area to intercept and aircraft that’s
coming to the United States with dope on it.”
Of those 14 OAM P-3s, there are two types: the Lockheed
Orion P-3B Airborne Early Warning (AEW) and the Lockheed
Orion P-3 Long Range Tracker (LRT). OAM currently operates
eight AEWs and six LRTs. As part of the counter drug strategy,
P-3s track drugs from the source zone, through the transit
zone and all the way to the arrival zone. The source zone would
be somewhere in South America where most of the coca is
grown and produced. The transit zone is the surrounding body
of water, and then coming up to the southwest border, southeastern
border and the Gulf of Mexico is the arrival zone. Loads
of dope are large in the source zone and then get broken up into
smaller and smaller loads as they go through the transit zone
and even smaller in the arrival zone, all the way down to street
deal-size amounts, said Eckhardt.
“That’s the theory, get the large loads as much as you can,”
he added. “That’s the first part of defense in-depth. And then
we have medium range aircraft like the Dash 8 and the Super
King Air Multi-Enforcement Aircraft, and they get the next
wave coming into the arrival zone. So that way, by the time
the Border Patrol is on the border, the FBI, DEA and all those
involved with counter-drugs work in the United States, there’s
less dope for them to deal with.”
onBoaRD teCHnology
AEW Detection and Monitoring aircraft are the only dedicated
law enforcement AEW aircraft in the world. They were
developed to provide wide area search, increased command
control, and communications capabilities. The LRT is designed
to intercept and track airborne smuggling threats. LRT aircraft
often fly in tandem with the AEW. Used in this manner, the
AEW detects and tracks multiple targets and the accompanying
LRT intercepts, identifies and tracks those suspect targets. That
was the case until the creation of SeaVue Radar, a long-range
maritime search radar, a couple of years ago. Since the integration
of SeaVue, they can now conduct operations with just one
aircraft.
“Back in the day before SeaVue was invented, we used to go
out in what’s called a ‘double eagle’ package; this is why [CBP]
was so good at looking for and finding dope,” said Eckhardt.
“The AEW and the LRT would take off together. The AEW would
go to the patrol boxes up high and point out all of the radar
targets for the LRT, which would stay low. The AEW would give
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a radar vector to the LRT and the LRT would stay low and visually
identify all the contacts. When SeaVue came out, we were
able to split the double eagle package. What we did was put the
electro optics [EO] on the AEW so that way it can go out and
find contacts and visually identify them themselves. So now
we can cover much more area than we could with the double
eagle package for a cheaper price. Getting the taxpayers some
value there.”
The AEW is equipped with an APS-145 radar, not the SeaVue
Radar, which is the same one used on the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye.
While flying, the AEW can cover an area the size of Pennsylvania
with one sweep of its radar.
“So where the Navy tuned it for the battle group scenario
looking for ships and cruise missiles inbound, the whole nine
yards, our contractors tuned it for looking for small boats, maritime
environments and low flying airplanes,” said Eckhardt.
The LRT is equipped with two radars, an APG 66, which is
an air-to-air search radar, and the SeaVue Radar. Armed with
the tools and technology necessary to carry out its mission, the
P-3 is a pilot favorite.
“For every flight hour we fly, there’s 26 pounds of cocaine
we put on the table,” said Eckhardt. “This airplane is [the] old
reliable. It gets people out of station safely and gets us home
safe. I love this airplane.”
In addition to the extensive reach of the P-3’s radar, they are
equipped with state-of-the-art communications systems including
VHF, UHF, HF, SATCOM and iridium satellite phones to
contact people via landlines. EO and infrared (IR) sensors play
a part in the P-3’s roles as well, in that they can visually locate
targets during daytime or nighttime operations.
CuRRent anD futuRe upgRaDes
OAM is in the process of “re-winging” all of the P-3s. The
average age of OAM’s P-3s is 46 years old and coming to the end
of service life. In 2005, OAM was finding cracks in the wing.
Upgrades needed to take place, which is by far less expensive
than purchasing brand new aircraft. Re-winging the aircraft
will add a minimum of 15,000 flight hours or approximately
18-20 more years of service.
“When you get to that situation [aircraft going beyond service
life], you send them into what’s called heavy maintenance,”
said Eckhardt. “They’ll bring them into a rework facility and
they do non-destructive inspection on them, like X-ray and
dyes and look for cracks and they’ll repair cracks. The airplane
comes out with patches on the wings and they’ll get into the
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