Navy's NBell 412 seen here circling TNI AL Landing Ship Tank while refuelling from a tanker - Angkasa/D.N. Yusuf

As soon as President Abdurrahman Wahid gives more attention to the marine potential, everyone was startled. To TNI AL, the dream of having the modern warship crossed the minds of sailors to admirals. Super Lynx helicopters, and P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircrafts are a hot issue in naval aviation circles today. The desire to own the plane is written on their face. "Such a great plane," admitted Navy Colonel (Sailor) R Eddy Hakim, the Navy Indonesian western fleet air arms Commander who once flew Australian Orion. Angkasa who was invited to the western fleet base in Tanjung Pinang last November, was under the impression that the existing planes were actually not too effective anymore.

As an operational support unit of the Naval Air Arm under fleet command, the Western Fleet Naval Aviation is responsible in preparing the planes. While the user and its chain of command came from Naval Battle Task Force (Gugus Tempur Laut), and Naval Security Task Force (Gugus Keamanan Laut) are responsible for the security of the ocean territory, from Cirebon to Sabang.

The facts in the field were turned out to be unproportional. To protect such a wide region with high violation rate, The Eastern Fleet Naval Aviation, got only four GAF N-22 Nomad Searchmaster, NBO-105 SAR (Search and Rescue), two ground power units two batteries, and minimum maintenance facility. For the time being, the under strength of personnel is overcome by getting personnel from the Eastern Fleet Air Arm (Satudarmatim), Surabaya. The Indonesian Naval Aviation patrolls regularly in Indonesian Western and Eastern region. And every month the personnels were shifted.

It is obviously ineffective. And let us not forget Malacca Strait, the busiest traffic and most affected by modern pirates' threat. Statistic data in International Maritim Bureau (IMB) reminds that of 180 piracies reported across the world in 1999 first semester, 66 happened in Indonesia. The Naval Air Arm agrees. Before midnight, they had already set in the ambush location. It was almost impossible to chase them. The flight instrument mission system for detection at nighttime, such FLIR (forward looking infrared) were unavailable.

Consequently, the pilots depended more on their private "radar", which is their eyes. The problem was some of the tracking radar, Bendix RDR 1400, which were used in N-22B had already broke down. Even the Litton APS-504(V)2 radar, which is installed under the nose, were discarded, whereas both of these radar were substantial. And it was harder to detect the wooden fish boats than the metal ships. "At 80 miles-sea range, the straight red line has already appeared on the monitor," explained Navy Captain (Sailor) Hari Harmanto.

The pilots' reference Jane's Fighting Ships were nowhere to be seen in maritime flight patrol. It was no wonder that whenever the pilot came across an unidentified ship, they had to contact the nearest Naval Base before taking further action. To keep these suspicious ships' data without being able to take any action because the planes are unarmed all the pilots in the Western Naval Aviation use three Nikon and a Canon cameras, besides binocular, off course.

The most simple question is for how long this would last. Some were trying to be skeptical. And some others were hopeless. "The Nomad is the most suitable plane for our region, this plane is great," said one of the pilots. Despite of how hopeless it might sound, still there is great will. According to The Piracy Reporting Center, besides armed with machine guns and cell phones, the pirates were also equipped with modern communication navigation instruments like GPS and transmitter for early monitor the patrol ship presence.

This mean, it is not enough to make a classical excuse such "the Nomad is suitable for an archipelago like Indonesia", or its endurance can reach five hours, whereas the facts in the field are developing fast.

It is too much to say that pirates were the main cause in depletion of 4 million US dollars country's maritime national income. This is only to show an example of the Indonesian Armed Forces' main weapon systems, that is very important. Another high rate of criminal action involves timber, sand, and bauxite smuggling or fish theft.

Danger area