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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?
When the last time this system would have saved an aircraft?
A shoulder fired rocket can not shoot that high. The plane is much more vulnerable when it is taking off or landing. So ... they should just install them at big airports to protect all jets coming in or out.
An absolute waste of money. The only thing it's good for is making defense contractors richer.
Why not just let airlines install the devices as the market demands, a portion of the market will want protection and a portion will not. The added cost will allow consumers to decide whether the protection is "worth it".
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.
What a great idea! Now when the terrorists eventually take over another round of planes, they can effectively block missiles intended to shoot them down before reaching sensitive targets.
How about if next, we equip subway cars with nuclear self-destruct devices so terrorists can't use them to make their speedy getaways?
I'd assume you can get a few chaffs and flares for cheap these days. No need for all this fancy and probably expensive laser stuff.
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Just out of curiosity, how many commercial airliners in the US have been shot down with shoulder fired missiles? I haven't had any luck trying to find an instance in Google.
I could see a system like this for a plane that has to fly over Iraq or South Africa, but inside of the US/Canada/Europe/Australia/Asia it doesn't seem to be necessary, worse, a system like this is probably going to require massive power and have considerable complexity. Highly complex pieces of equipment are liable to malfunction at some point and possibly even cause a crash.
No, installing something like this in every airplane in the US fleet is just not realistic. Having it as an option for people who have to fly near areas where terrorists have shoulder fired missiles and a grudge against the west is good though.
I read the internet for the articles.
That'd be Barbara Boxer. WTG, crack editing staff!
"I do not regret the things I have done, but those that I did not do."
Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system.
These expensive new anti-missile systems wouldn't happen to be made in Senator Boxer's home state of California, would they?
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I say we let the MythBusters team test this one out, before the congress votes on it.
Adam: On this episode of MythBusters, we test if terrorists can use the signal from a missile-jamming laser system to actually track the plane more accurately than would otherwise be possible.
Jamie: Yes, this is one of those stories we've been getting a lot of email about, and we've gotten special support from the folks at Northrop Grumman. I'm really looking forward to trying this one out.
[20 minutes of footage of tinkering with rocket guidance systems and guest rocket scientists advice, with several shots of rockets missing a watermelon with a simple modulated laser on it, and at last some splattered fruit.]
Adam: This is so cool - I think we're ready for the real test.
Jamie: Yeah, I'm really happy with how this came out. I'm surprised how easy it was to change the laser guidance on these missiles to track towards our laser masking system. We'll just have to see how the real system pans out.
Announcer: Coming up next: Will the airplane defense work against the modified missile? [Video of a missile heading towards an airplane] See what happens, after this break!...
Hey - at least it would be better standards than the folks who currently test our voting equipment, and likely many of our governmentally-mandated military expenditures.
Ryan Fenton
Thank god that FedEx is finally protected against those UPS militia death-squads.
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How about a cost/benefit analysis of such a system before we knee jerk expensive solution to a low risk problem.
The problem here is that people equate one 450 person aircraft with more value that of 40,000 fatalities due to automobile accidents.
Air travel is one of the safest forms of travel, bar none. We don't need to spend BILLIONS of dollars making it safer, mainly because it isn't going to make it much safer.
It all sounds good, but really, it is a waste.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
Would more lives be saved inventing and installing an in-cabin fire suppression system instead of an anti-missile system?
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If for planes, why not trains? If I was a terrorist, I'd skip airports entirely, far too many cameras and police. I'd target a high speed intercity train. If I time it right, I should be able to blast a 125mph train into pieces on a high speed track, in time to cause major derailments from other trains. Given that during commuter times, there could easily be 200-300 people on each train, I'd easily rack up the same body count as I would by hitting an airliner (assuming the airliner didn't crash into a tower block).
And I can hit the train from pretty much anywhere along it's route.
Trying to make us all immune to terrorist attacks is just impractical. We are treating the symptom, not the disease.
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The simple fact of the matter is that there is nothing to be afraid of, and Americans are only afraid because of the corporate media propaganda machine.
A False Sense of Insecurity? [pdf] [google cache]:
I don't know that I've yet seen an apology from a newspaper's editors for being taken by last summer's "liquid bomb plot". They can't, of course, because they're selected by the paper's corporate owners to advance the "consolidation of power" agenda. If the media barons were to suddenly say "sorry, there never really was anything to fear, and 9/11 might have actually been a 'false flag' operation..." Well - however would George Bush justify setting up permanent bases in Iraq, and his plans to attack Iran and Syria?
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What if the US spends less money on defense , and instead behaves less like a dick. Instead we should concentrate on being a little less arrogant, and be more world friendly. Foreign relations has really taken a turn or the worse in the last 6 years or so. Or we can continue the current trend, and then just travel everywhere in personal sized mini tanks, with anti missile/IUD technology.
People keep on trying to put bandages on the problem, instead of addressing what is actually wrong, kind of like treating a fever with some aspirin, instead of treating the infection.
..........FULL STOP.
This is the sort of ridiculous, slippery-slope argument that the government loves to throw in our faces when trying to justify the erosion of our civil rights and the wanton military spending that are ostensibly necessary "because of the terrorists."
There are not going to be actual "gangs" of Islamic fundamentalists running around in your neighborhood, killing people in front of your kids. First, there are not actually enough fundamentalists to make this happen. Second, we do have a police force, you know -- it's their job to deal with gangs. You could argue that they don't do a particularly good job of that in some parts of LA, but to be honest, even there is nothing like it is in the movies. People with families live in Compton. There are gangs, to be sure, but even there, people killing others in front of your kids is an uncommon occurence, not an everyday affair.
Let's talk about a "reasoned" response: 3000 people died on 9/11, that's all. It's tragic, but come on. How many people die in car crashes every year? The reason people keep bringing it up is because, every year, nearly 40 thousand people do!
Here's the reality of the situation: 6 years later, we've accomplished nothing that is actually relevant to 9/11. Osama Bin Laden is still at large, as much as the government tries to understate his importance. No replacement for the WTC is on the horizon, despite much in the way of planning.
However, we have used the event to justify tremendous, unreasonable spending on cockamamy schemes like this one that will do exactly nothing to help prevent terrorism. Seriously, the people that came up with the 9/11 plan and executed it were brilliant, from a logistical, strategic, and creativity perspective. Do you really think they're a one-trick pony? That now that they've done 9/11, the only possible terrorist attack they can think of involves running a plane into a building? Because that seems to be the way our administration thinks.
We've gone to the ends of the earth to make flying a pain, hurting our economy and annoying our passengers. And for what? To prevent another 9/11? Why not just blow up a building? Why bother with the plane? We're expecting it, it would be stupid.
Maybe George Bush was right, after all -- maybe they did attack us because they "hate our freedom." Lamentably, our response seems to be to throw our freedom away to appease them.
Here's a wild thought: how about just ignoring them?
...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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By the same logic, I should wear a bullet proof (okay, knife proof as I'm in the UK, and they're subtly different) vest at all times, incase someone decides randomly to try killing me.
Okay, here's another one; why aren't we equipping trains with these? Why are people still allowed on trains with significant amounts of liquid. Is it because trains are actually less at risk, or because everyone's running around panicking about planes?
The US needs to sort out its foreign policy, stop worrying about planes all the time, and maybe, just maybe, think about things that kill people more. Like, disease, car crashes, natural disasters...