Anti-Missile Technology To Be Tested on Commercial Jets

Hugh Pickens writes "As many as three American Airlines passenger jets will be outfitted this spring with laser technology intended to protect planes from missile attacks. The tests, which could involve more than 1,000 flights, will determine how the technology holds up under the rigors of flight. The technology is intended to stop attacks by detecting heat from missiles, then responding in a fraction of a second by firing laser beams to jam the missiles' guidance systems. A Rand study in 2005 estimated it would cost about $11 billion to protect every US airliner from shoulder-fired missiles. Over 20 years, the cost to develop, procure and operate anti-missile systems could hit $40 billion."

Comments

Re:What is wrong with America & American Airli

[badasscat]

Not a single passenger jet has been downed from the type of missiles these "high power lasers" are supposed to be able to prevent. Not a single one.

Only through dumb luck.

Example 1.

Example 2. (Be sure to scroll down and read about the Israeli 757 that was fired upon in Kenya.)

Example 3. (Ok, not a passenger plane, but the terrorists apparently thought it was... and it is a common airliner.)

It's only a matter of time, and everybody knows it.

You know what the FAA does when it has a situation that it knows will eventually result in a disaster costing hundreds of lives? They try to fix it. That's part of their job.

Re:Exactly, it will never work

[x2A]

Well the pilots survived that crash landing... so that's something?

Actually this crash landing was pretty exceptional in that 50 people survived the 200mph crash landing. Many of those that died died after the crash from drowning[1], as they prematurely inflated their life jackets which made it impossible to get out of the plane as soon as the water level had risen above the level of the doors.

Your chances aren't great, since the year 2000, of 652 people involved in commercial jet emergency water landings, only 10 have survived[2].

I'd probably prefer to be blown up by a missile, but I couldn't say for sure until I've tried both.

For a guy who builds it

[LatencyKills]

I work for the company that builds it. I'll even go so far as to say that I had a hand in the design of several key systems and leave it at that. Point 1: The system proposed here is a variant of a system that is mounted on many military aircraft. It uses a laser to inject false tracking information into IR guided missiles. These missiles do not, for the most part, use focal plane arrays or any other similar technology. They have one pixel, and they use spatial modulation to generate corrective track and guidance information. The jamming laser cannot blind other pilots, shoot down other aircraft, or be used by the missile to generate valid track information (a concept we call home on jam). These systems are tested through many progressive levels using pieces of and then finally entire shoulder fired missile systems - real missiles, right out of the tube, with mass equivalents inserted in place of the warhead package. We shot real missiles at these systems dozens of times, and they work really, really well. Point 2: The shoulder fired threat is real. There have been attempts to smuggle missiles into this country, as well as shoot down commercial aircraft (in Kenya, not in the US). They are cheap, readily available on the black market, and any yahoo with five minutes training can use one. Point 3: Given both of the above, and with my paycheck riding on it, I still think it's a poor use of money. If you want to dollar cost average lives, I think there are other targets which have a greater possiblity for loss of life that can be protected for less money. What about using a SAR to try and keep pipe bombs out of malls or schools? What about a tracking system to keep an eye on LNG tanker trucks, a big mobile explodely temptation to terrorists if I ever saw one. 9-11 involved aircraft, but beyond that I think we're fixating a little too much.