HELRAS

HELRAS or the Helicopter Long Range Active Sonar is a naval helicopter undersea sensor, a dipping sonar (a form of towed array sonar), deployed by helicopters of many naval air forces around the world to detect submarines; it is a form of geophysical MASINT.

History[]

HELRAS was first developed in the 1970s by Bendix, FIAR and British Aerospace.^[1] Another rival system was called FLASH (Folding Light Acoustic System for Helicopters). In the 1980s, the system was supplied by Bendix.^[2]

A competitor of HELRAS is the Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS).

Capability[]

It can detect submarines up to 60NM.^[3]

Manufacture[]

Parts for the system are made by Rolls-Royce North America.^[4]

Deployment[]

The system has been fitted to EH101, S70B, NH90, CH-148, AS532SC, AB412, and AS565 with helicopter of navies such as Italy, Turkey, Greece, Netherlands, Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, and Morocco. The system has also been fitted to unmanned surface vessels Seagull and RHIBs for Israel and USN.

References[]

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[1] Active dipping sonar technology

[2] Flight International October 1987

[3] Simulating Anti-Submarine Warfare using MANA

[4] Rolls-Royce Naval Handling

[5] HIDAS

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v t Hydroacoustics
Sonar	Active acoustics Baffles (submarine) Bistatic sonar Echo sounding Fessenden oscillator GLORIA sidescan sonar Multibeam echosounder Passive acoustics Scientific echosounder Side-scan sonar Sonar beamforming Sonobuoy Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Synthetic aperture sonar Towed array sonar Upward looking sonar
Ocean acoustics	Acoustic network Acoustic release Acoustic Doppler current profiler Acoustic seabed classification Acoustical oceanography Hydrophone Long baseline acoustic positioning system Ocean acoustic tomography Short baseline acoustic positioning system Sofar bomb SOFAR channel Sound speed gradient Sound velocity probe Ultra-short baseline Underwater acoustics Underwater acoustic communication Underwater acoustic positioning system
Acoustic ecology	Acoustic survey in fishing Acoustic tag Animal echolocation Beached whale Deep scattering layer Fishfinder Fisheries acoustics Hearing range of marine mammals Marine mammals and sonar Whale song
Related topics	Acoustic signature Bioacoustics Biophony Geophysical MASINT Hydrographic survey Noise map Soundscape