Maritime patrol is a field that is relatively unknown to the public. Most often dependent on naval air forces, it is made up of long-range aircraft, equipped to detect, monitor and potentially engage ships and submarines in a large maritime area, sometimes very far from the coast. Maritime patrol aircraft, such as the French Atlantic 2, the American P3 Orion, or the Russian Tu-142, were traditionally aircraft equipped with turboprop engines, designed to operate at very low altitude and at low speed, in particular to use the detector. magnetic anomaly which makes it possible to detect variations in the Earth's magnetic field in the presence of a large metallic mass nearby, and therefore to detect a submarine while diving.
But the MAD (Magnetic Anomaly Detector) is not the only detection equipment available to a maritime patrol aircraft, which also implements a powerful surface radar, passive electromagnetic emission (ESM) detection systems, and releasable sonar, called Suno-buoys, used to detect the position of a submersible. Once located, the aircraft can deploy acoustically guided airborne torpedoes and underwater mines against submarines, guided bombs and anti-ship missiles against ships.
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