Half the Answer
By Mitch Berg
American Airlines is testing anti-missile jamming devices on some of its passenger planes:
Tens of thousands of airline passengers will soon be flying on jets outfitted with anti-missile systems as part of a new government test aimed at thwarting terrorists armed with shoulder-fired projectiles.
Three American Airlines Boeing 767-200s that fly daily round-trip routes between New York and California will receive the anti-missile laser jammers this spring, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which is spending $29 million on the tests.
Jets will fly with the jammer device mounted on the belly of the plane, between the wheels. The device works with sensors, also mounted on the plane, that detect a heat-seeking missile and shoot a laser at it to send the missile veering harmlessly off course.
I’d heard that the airlines and DHS were going to start testing some kind of countermeasures on passenger planes. I’d wondered if it would be the little flare launchers that you see on fighters – the ones that launch the magnesium flares when they’re going on bombing runs. I had visions of spent flares plopping into backyards in Richfield and Eagan.
Fortunately, I was wrong.
Officials emphasize that no missiles will be test-fired at the planes,
Rumors that the “officials” had to emphasize this point to prevent Northwest Airlines from attempting a live-fire test are completely unconfirmed.
Next, they need to put machine guns in the wings, like on WWII fighters, so that the next pilot on the take-off or glide path can come in and strafe the terrorists after they launch.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
It’s not a bad idea and fairly simple. The laser will disrupt the IR sensor and cause the missile to lose lock.
Imagine flares being set off as you fly into San Diego in the late summer. You’d be burning down at least whole neighborhoods if not the entire southern half of the state.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:04 am
No, I know how they work.
And the flare idea was, er, tongue in cheek.
I need to develop a “tongue-in-cheek” smiley. Maybe :-9
January 7th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The idea of SoCal was also a bit ironic, so consider it a typical Internet conversation: very low SNR and side channels completely garbled.
Only somewhat more seriously, it would seem strange to a normal person that given a relatively low cost, low complexity solution the airlines are so reluctant to even experiment. But considering that both airline management and lawyers are involved, the fact that the testing is being fought is understandable. The legal environment generated by the mere fact that such a possible device is available, even if it fails to operate marginally, is horrendous for the airlines.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
OK, I get it that they aren’t throwing out flares but what happens when the missile is deflected away from the plane? Does it only go off if it hits the plane? What if it hits something else?
January 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
OK, I get it that they aren’t throwing out flares but what happens when the missile is deflected away from the plane? Does it only go off if it hits the plane?
It depends on the missile – and I’ve never been all that familiar with any of them. Some surface-to-air missiles go off on impact, while others have some sort of proximity fuse – a little radar antenna that sets the charge off if the missile is close enough. The blast and fragmentation are supposed to damage the target badly enough that it can’t fly, and crashes.
What if it hits something else?
Man-portable, shoulder-launched missiles (like the Stinger, Redeye and SAM7) have very small warheads, and don’t carry much fuel. If they fall into a field, they don’t do much damage. In a residential area, their explosion wouldn’t be big enough to cause widespread damage. It could hurt or kill someone if it were close enough, sure, and it’d mess up a house pretty bad. But it wouldn’t kill the hundreds that could die if a plane got shot down.