[Dex Sinister]

I bet this is to protect airline passengers from all those Surface-to-air missiles that terrorists buy at local gunshows, eh?

http://boston.com/dailyglobe2/136/business/US_plan_to_shield_airlines_from_missiles_advances+.shtml

US plan to shield airlines from missiles advances [Can't have missiles making improper advances at aircraft, now can we?]

A proposal to equip all commercial jets in the United States with missile defense systems moved forward yesterday, when the Department of Homeland Security completed a plan for determining whether a workable technology exists.

A report to be issued by the department in Washington today will call for the government to hire two companies to develop prototype systems that protect passenger jets from heat-seeking, shoulder-fired missiles. [...]

[TallPine]

So ... we can't control shoulder fired SAMs,

and they think they are going to be able to control handguns ?????


(is that a missle in your pocket or are you glad to see me?)

[TarpleyG]

I heard a blurb about this on the idiot box yesterday. They will spend an ungodly amount of money on this project and never use it in the course of defensive maneuvers and it will surely be credited for crashing more than one aircraft.

Don't we have more pressing matters right now? How about the Mexican border. Maybe they can rig these contraptions to stop people from coming over the river. Just a thought.

GT

[dustind]

:banghead:

[Carnitas]

Hey, how about we just racially profile like big dogs, do exhaustive background checks and lie detector tests, and not let anyone who's not squeeky clean into the country.

The seem to more concerned with being fair to non-americans that protecting the people they swore to protect.

[Tamara]

So, I wonder who gets to pay for this?

Just the unlucky folks who still, for job-related reasons, still have to line up to board the flying cattle-cars, or all of us poor sucke... er, taxpayers? :rolleyes:

[Tamara]

Hey, how about we just racially profile like big dogs, do exhaustive background checks and lie detector tests, and not let anyone who's not squeeky clean into the country.

Oh, yeah, that approach has worked so well to keep, say, imported drugs off the streets, f'rinstance. ;)

[Gordon Fink]

“A proposal to equip all commercial jets in the United States with missile defense systems moved forward yesterday, when the Department of Homeland Security completed a plan for determining whether a workable technology exists.”

So now when terrorists hijack another plane full of unarmed passengers and crew, the Air Force won’t even be able to shoot it down. :rolleyes:

~G. Fink

[Rawlings]

Nah, it'll just give the Falcon jocks an excuse to "go to guns!" ;)

[Jim March]

Ummm...not to be contrary, but...would chaff and flares be all that pricey?

Further thought: any such "stinger type attack" will happen when the bird is taking off or landing, right? Near an airport? So the moment traffic control sees a missile launch (radar or visual), all they do is hit ONE button at the tower and it signals ALL the planes flying nearby to drop flares and chaff!

This would eliminate the need for each plane to have it's own lock-on or other missile detectors. They would instead have a simple reciever and the dispensers. Cost per plane? Ballpark, what, $20,000 for the dispenser pack plus a one-time installation cost? Transmitter at the tower, what, $1,000 tops?

Yes, you'd have more flares and chaff scattered around than you need if the Tower hits the button. This is a BAD thing? Set the flares to go out in 20 seconds or so, they'll be cold by the time they land (fire hazard otherwise).

Granted, it wouldn't help against a fighter at higher altitude. Well gee, any 747 gets a Mig23 or whatever on it's butt, it's toast unless it's Air Force One with rear-mounted sidewinders on board!

[Sergeant Bob]

I don't think (just my opinion from the info I could find) commercial jets would have a chance even with flares or chaff. The Stinger (I am assuming the system would have to defeat) has an effective range of about 3 to 4 miles, travels at Mach 2.2 (about 1600 mph), and depending on the version can differentiate between countermeasures and the aircraft.
Raytheon (General Dynamics) FIM-92 Stinger (http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-92.html)
At Mach 2.2, the missile would reach it's target in about 6.6 seconds (at 3 miles range). It would hit the plane before anyone would even realize it had been launched.
The only way the airliner would likely know it was coming would be if it had it's own defensive radar (way expensive!), and even then, evasion of a SAM is dependent on the ability to make extreme maneuvers (in the 8G range) and a commercial airliner will probably only perform an 8G turn....once.

The two companies made a deal in March under which they will jointly manufacture and test a missile countermeasures system for commercial aircraft. The deal was signed shortly after Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, cosponsored a bill in May that would authorize federal funding to equip all 6,800 passenger jets in the country with the systems, at an estimated cost of between $7 billion and $10 billion. If the bill passes, that work would have to begin before year-end.

I've a feeling this is just meant to butter somebodies bread and score political points.

[MrAcheson]

IIRC correctly they are not suggesting putting flares/chaff on commercial aircraft. Instead they are suggesting that the government install LIRCMS (Laser InfraRed Counter Measures System). LIRCMS works by shining a IR laser into the IR seeker of a missile in order to blind it and drive it nuts. It is an expensive, heavy, and classified system. If this goes through it will be a huge boondoggle for everyone concerned.

[Pilgrim]

I don't think (just my opinion from the info I could find) commercial jets would have a chance even with flares or chaff.

Chaff and flares are usually deployed in two ways. One, a electronic threat warning receiver detects a guidance or tracking beam for a surface to air missile and starts dumping chaff and flares. Two, the pilot dumps chaff and flares in a preemptive mode when approaching a known threat area. The latter undoubtedly would be on approach to landing in the scenarios discussed here.

IR jammers accomplish their task by emitting pulsed light in the IR spectrum which fools the IR seeker head on a SAM into thinking the IR source is somewhere else. To foil this, later technology SAM IR seeker heads look for IR energy in more than one place in the IR spectrum.

In 1977, General Dynamics had begun full-scale development of a next-generation Stinger, designated XFIM-92B. This missile, also known as Stinger-POST (Passive Optical Seeker Technique), has a new microprocessor-controlled two-band (IR/UV) seeker head. The POST seeker uses rosette-pattern image scanning techniques, which allows it to distinguish more efficiently between the real target and IR decoys or background clutter. The FIM-92B was placed in limited production in 1983, alongside the continuing production of the FIM-92A Basic Stinger. FIM-92A/B production finally ended in 1987 after more than 16000 rounds.

I expect that after all this money is spent on installing IR jammers on civil aircraft, the bad guys will come up with a counter-counter measure. Perhaps retrofitting television seeker heads onto surface to air missiles. Then there is the good old RPG that the "skinnies" used effectively in Mogasishu.

[Kharn]

Why would a terrorist bother to learn how to shoot a SAM, find one for sale, and then try to launch it at airliner that is flying, when they could shoot an RPG at an airplane thats sitting on the taxi-way? One hit to the fuel tanks would probably have the same effect as a SAM on landing. RPGs are a lot cheaper and a lot easier to get than SAMs in 3rd world hellholes. Also, the RPG wouldnt care about being dazzled with a laser or any other countermeasure.
I smell pork or liberal stupidity, but its too early in the morning to figure out which one it really is...

Kharn

[dustind]

When i first heard of this many months ago i thought "how stupid can they be?" :banghead:

Then i thought this is there way of makeing the sheep who voted for them happy by "doing something" :cuss:

I now think this is an attempt at power, and, or money. Are they trying to bankrupt the airlines? There has to be something in it for them since they are moving forward with it. :fire:

[Jim March]

Well...first, a lot of the "stingers" that AQ has access to are the old Commie-block knockoffs instead of "the real thing", and the old Russian ones ain't quite as smart.

With about 6 seconds of flight time, you could program the tower radar system to trigger every plane's chaff'n'flares when it sees a certain missile-like pattern of flight movement in the controlled airspace. Reaction time on the flares/chaff could be down in the one to two second range.

RPGs are much shorter range. You have to get close, and that's why airports have such heavy fences set up over 100 yards from the planes.

Then again, if it's a suicide attack, get ahold of a semi truck, set up a couple of RPG shooters in armored platforms on the flatbed, crash the gate, drive through shooting at anything with wings and when out of ammo, ram it into one last plane and set off the 200lbs of C4 in the bed :(.

Use one of the trailers that is a box-bed with cloth flap sides to conceal the armored shooting positions, and you could cruise it down the freeway without a second glance. Drop the tarps when in range...:mad:

[moa]

Well, with 4,000 aircraft in the skies over the USA at any given moment there is an abundance of targets and weapons. One possibility is have a small general aviation aircraft crash into a jet liner that is either on the ground, or landing or taking off. How do you avoid that?

There is probably many thousands of general aviation aircraft to pick from.

[Sergeant Bob]

Use one of the trailers that is a box-bed with cloth flap sides to conceal the armored shooting positions, and you could cruise it down the freeway without a second glance. Drop the tarps when in range...

We call those trailers "Curtainsides". Yep, do something like that, or any number of other things not aircraft related. There are so many ways they could hit us, not all producing a large body count. Such as, knocking out power grids (the people of New York got real testy when the power went out). Poisoning food or water supplies. Derailing trains hauling chlorine or other hazardous chemicals. Snipers...(we already saw how that was handled) etc, etc.
We think because 9/11 was an aircraft attack, the next one will be too. So these blowhard Congresscreeps get up on their soapboxes and proclaim how they are going to save us all from evil. They get to spend Billions of our dollars, land a few contracts for their friends, get a few votes to ensure they stay in power to wreak more financial havoc on the American sheeple.

[Gordon Fink]

Recently, my wife and I were hiking in a local but somewhat remote park. This nearly deserted park, staffed by one bored ranger happens to be under the flight path of a major airport. Terrorists could easily set up shop there and bring down airliner after airliner with unguided rockets.

Air traffic is not safe.

~G. Fink