Multiple scans allow reliability in detection with a low false-alarm rate. Phillip Lacovara, director of business development at the Kaman Electro-optics Development Center (Tucson, AZ), where the cameras are manufactured, notes that the maturing of the technology over the last decade was the result of “building a little and testing a lot, for both hardware and software.”
The helicopter is equipped with a display station that presents camera images to an operator in real time. Also part of the system is a Global Positioning System navigation receiver that correlates imager data for precise target location. These data then allow the mines to be cleared or avoided by ships.
Further development
Kaman currently has a $6.5 million contract to fabricate another Magic Lantern pod. The company will modify five other squadron aircraft to carry the system, in addition to the one helicopter completed thus far, under a separate $1 million program. The system is designed to allow the pod to be installed on a helicopter in about four hours and has numerous built-in test functions.
Moored and floating mines are the most numerous kinds of antiship mines in the world and pose threats to shipping in such areas as the Arabian Gulf. Navy airborne-mine-countermeasures director Capt. Bill Arnold says, “Since 1950, 14 Navy ships have been lost or seriously damaged by mines, which is more than all other causes of loss or damage combined.”