Alex de Waal has an interesting post on the role of satellite phones, and specifically the Arabic and more importantly cheap Thurayas, in the wars of the Sahara today. He argues, in essence, that the capital requirements of being a warlord are coming down; if you don’t have a Toyota, you’re cannon fodder, if you…
Read More long distance information, give me Goma, DRCA bit of Viktor Bout news. It looks like, according to AFP, that the Americans are planning to deploy B. Hussein Stalinhitler himself, when the President is in that part of the world next month. I can remember when “someone high up in the contracting world” actively wanted to encourage him, in support of a…
Read More a bit of BoutHere’s a ManyEyes visualisation of the top 40 airlines on the Viktorfeed, after a bit more than a year’s data logging. The old gang has shrunk a lot; British Gulf is still in there, but only because of their dominance before the end of February, when they cut off never to speak again. Eastern Express…
Read More reviewing the resultsGoes especially for Antonov-32s. They seem to attract trouble, or the other way around. We’ve been seeing a few AYK Avia flights to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere lately. Based in Armenia; ICAO AYK. Here’s a cracking detail about one of their Antonov-32s, EK-32500 (Kyrgyz registry), serial number 2009 in its past guise as 9L-LFP (i.e.…
Read More some like to go out dancing, some others like us, we gotta workFrom the Viktorfeed: Phoenix Aviation/AVE, a company banned from the EU and which has a long history of dubious activities, sent off a flight (number 2E501 – note this as it’s important later) from Dubai at 1539 with destination Bristol (Lulsgate). DXB’s Web site lists it as “passenger charter” (click “more”). AVE is the UAE-based…
Read More Banned airlines come to the West CountryWell, well; the interesting bit in this story about Blackwater involvement in a CIA assassination program (which didn’t actually happen) is this. It was never fully operational, and has been canceled twice: once by then-CIA Director George Tenet, restarted by Porter Goss, and finally by CIA Director Leon Panetta in June. This is crucial; Goss…
Read More foggyI got around to updating the Viktorfeed whitelist, and whilst I was at it, doing a clean-up of the database to remove all the known false positives by deleting all the movements that came from an airline that was on the list. Interestingly, this gave me an opportunity to calculate the false positive rate –…
Read More false positivesWhat’s happening on the Viktorfeed? Something called “Skyway Ltd”, using the ICAO code DGD, is doing quite a few flights into Iraq and Afghanistan; so is “Transaviaservice” or FNV. This last is the current owner of Antonov 12 ER-AXE/7345201, which we’ve had here before, both with Aerocom and with a shortlived project involving routes from…
Read More it’s the new Middle East, or somethingSomeone’s been doing a good series on the recent loss of a Mi-26 helicopter near the British base in Sangin, a civilian machine chartered in to carry supplies around Helmand. The aircraft was ER-MCV, and it apparently belonged to Pecotox Air, an old and fairly dodgy charter operator from Moldova; however, it was apparently wearing…
Read More heliviktorA quick UR-CAK update. The owners are vigorously protesting, but it still isn’t clear who they are. The crew apparently claimed that the arms belonged to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, and the handling agent and the Equatorial Guinea government say they are for Equatorial Guinea. But it seems that the plane came from Zagreb,…
Read More Kano seizure update