Filling the Void in Missile Protection for Passenger Aircraft
Recent attempts to shoot down commercial airliners, which culminated
in the missile attack on an Arkia flight at Mombassa, Kenya in
November 2002, have underlined the need to protect passenger aircraft
from portable surface-to-air missiles.
Several Israeli companies are providing matured technological
solutions to this threat, and are expected to be ready to provide
suitable defenses to passenger aircraft as soon as the accelerated
process of development and certification is completed. The production
program is to be funded by the Israeli government.
Four systems are proposed by Israeli industries to counter shoulder-launched
anti-aircraft missiles, utilizing modified modify military systems
as well as new technologies.
Elta and IMI have already announced a joint venture to develop
and market FlightGuard, a system based on Elta's Missile Warning
System (MWS) and IMI's Countermeasures Delivery System (CDMS).
The system, which is displayed here at Le Bourget aboard IAI's
Boeing 737 technology demonstrator, is claimed to be the only
one that is operational and available. It will be installed on
Israeli passenger aircraft as a gap-filler until more advanced
countermeasures are fully matured.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense (MOD) expects that the complete
program will cost around $1-1.5 million per aircraft, depending
on volume. According to General Amos Yaron, general manager of
the MOD, his ministry is financing the R&D program and will
also cover certification and installation of near- and long-term
systems. A near-term solution will be implemented "within
months." Final development and certification for airliners
and corporate jets is underway and expected to be completed this
year. IMI is developing for the FlightGuard a new range of new,
high-intensity, rapid-burn flares that are designed to protect
a large target such as a two- or four-engine passenger aircraft.
The flares are designed to exhaust by the time they descend to
ground level, eliminating the risk of fires.
RAFAEL is promoting the Britening, based on its Directional Infra-Red
Counter-Measures (DIRCM) system developed for helicopters. The
system, on display at RAFAEL's booth in the Israeli Pavilion,
is designed for retractable or fixed installation, and combines
an MWS with a modified version of the Jam-Air system. According
to RAFAEL, the use of an IR jammer will be the only long-term,
cost-effective solution for the protection of commercial airlines,
as it offers maintenance- and risk-free operation and enables
future upgrading at minimal cost by software updates.
An important feature of the system is that, unlike flares, it
continues to engage the threat until the missile's flight-path
no longer endangers the aircraft. Due to the large heat signature
of an airliner, a missile that breaks lock from one engine could
re-acquire another by chance. Britening's persistence can prevent
this from happening. A single Britening jammer based on the RAFAEL's
IR-lamp based DIRCM or a modulated IR laser jammer, recently unveiled
by Elbit, could be positioned below the tail, and would be sufficient
to protect twinjets such as the Airbus A320 series, A330, Boeing
737, 757, 767 and 777. Two jammers on either side of an aircraft
will be required to cover a four-engine widebody such as a Boeing
747 or Airbus A340. The system was recently demonstrated in ground
tests aboard an airliner, when Britening successfully broke lock
on several types of missile.
Elbit's MUSIC (which can be seen on its stand) was also tested
recently against several missile types, and demonstrated its effectiveness
in breaking lock. MUSIC uses a MWS and a modulated eye-safe laser
that deceives the missile's seeker with false information that
diverts it from its flight path.
Elisra is displaying here a unique sensor designed to support
two important functions for the countermeasures system-threat
detection and missile tracking countermeasure directing functions.
Elisra completed a recent test series of its Passive Approach
Warning Sensor (PAWS) that indicates any approaching missile threat
and can determine if it represents imminent danger to the aircraft.
PAWS can also determine when and where countermeasures should
be deployed. A test series recently conducted by the Israeli air
force on its combat helicopters was part of an evaluation of the
system for future deployment on IAF AH-64D Longbow Apaches.
