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Anti-Missile Defenses For Commercial Jets
The AP reports that the first anti-missile defense system has been installed for testing on a commercial jet, a FedEx cargo carrier. The system is intended to detect the launch of a shoulder-fired missile at takeoff or landing, and disable the missile with a laser beam. Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system. She and other members of Congress are hoping to equip all US commercial passenger liners with this system in 20 years, at a cost of billions of dollars. Is this good common sense or the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism?
The system will be mounted on the belly of the aircraft, so an air-to-air missile launched from above will not be affected by it. It's possible to perform aerobatics in a passenger aircraft (rolls and such) but even so it is highly unlikely that a system designed to detect the launch of a ground-to-air missile could do anything about air-to-air missiles. If they could, then every aircraft in the military arsenal of sufficient size to carry the system would have one already, for missile point defense in flight.
In addition, passenger craft are subsonic (with a notable exception or two) while any contemporary jet is supersonic, and passenger craft are ungainly pigs compared to fighter aircraft. Thus you don't even need missiles; cannons would do the job just fine. You could literally line up and blow off the engines without substantial effort.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Barbara Boxer is a Senator from California.
Northrup Grumman makes this system, and it's a potential multi-billion dollar contract.
Northrup Grumman is headquartered in Los Angelas, CA.
I just wanted to point that out. Every other highly modded comment is pointing out how there are better ideas than this.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I can tell you this based on my direct experience as a Stinger gunner.
Shoulder fired anti aircraft missiles are built primarily to shoot combat jets out of the sky. The amount of explosives (less than a pound of something like HT3) is negligible. The missile's primary objective is to rip the skin open of the wings/fuselage, having the explosive go off inside the jet is a bonus. The sheer air friction of a torn fuselage will rip a small jet apart.
Apply this to a commercial airliner. Most missiles will hit the fuselage, and lets assume a gaping hole was created. The most that will happen will be rapid decompression (at altitude), significant flight handling differences, and maybe some people will get sucked out of the plane. More than likely a commercial airliner would land after being hit with a shoulder fired SAM. The only chance of taking out a significant chunk of the plane would be to hit it just after takeoff and get the fuel tanks, but you can't exactly pick where you want the missile to hit the plane.
They should invest the research funds towards making better baggage scanners.
-B
...the considerably unlikely chain of events that has to properly line up in order to result in a downed aircraft.
1) First you have to get ahold of a missile. Hollywood notwithstanding, shoulder-launched SAMs are relatively rare, even in mainstream standing armies. The scales of issue just aren't all that large. They are expensive and fragile units, much more so than any other weapon, so they don't get handed out to just anyone.
Probably the largest concentration was in North Vietnam during the 60's, but North Vietnam had tons of time to accumulate them, and a direct threat (daily US bombing raids) to counter.
There just aren't a lot of them out there to be had.
2) Then, if you can find one, it has to be operational. Explosives and electronics have shelf-lives, and as mentioned, these things are fragile. If it hasn't been well treated, there's a nontrivial chance that some critical component will fail to function, and it won't fire, guide, or explode.
3) If you've got one and it is operational, then you have to find a trained operator. Even "fire and forget" missiles require some skill to operate, and even if the weapon is American-proof simple to use, the operator still needs to be familiar with the ideal operating envelope - what aspect should the target be engaged with (head-on? tailchaser? deflection?) Does the position of the sun matter? Do you aim at an engine, or centre of mass? Lead or lag?
4) Assuming an operational missile and a trained operator who takes a good shot, the accuracy rate of these devices is not high. I'd imagine a commercial jet would be an easier target (although with cooler running turbofan engines, maybe not) but even so, there is a high statistical percentage of these missiles that will fail to impact even when fired in perfect conditions - they work best in volleys.
5) Assuming a hit, the odds on downing the aircraft are not good. Airliners are big, solid aircraft, and shoulder-fired missiles by design cannot have very large warheads - you have to package propulsion, guidance, and warhead into something light enough to be carried by a single person. Being struck by a missile is certainly unpleasant, but I'd expect any modern airliner to be able to suffer catastrophic failure of a single engine and still be able to fly (long enough to get back down at least). That's not to say that the missile *couldn't* bring down a liner (sever the controls to a control surface and I think you've got a crash) but neither are you looking at a Hollywood style giant fireball.
While it is certainly *possible* that one could experience a terrorist organization bringing together a fresh missile, a trained operator, and a lucky shot, it's not very *likely* - to the point where I think the defensive device is just silly.
DG
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