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."

So...

...will the passengers on these airlines be told that SAMs will be launched at them in order to test the anti-missile defences?

Re:So...

no. AA missiles have a perfectly fine time manoeuvering. Something about not having to worry about a 9G turn limit. Not only that, commercial airplanes aren't exactly manoeuverable to begin with. They don't have to be, it's nearly impossible to make them so, so they aren't. Intercepting will be no problem. Especially if they use a radar guided missile. The point of putting in the IR spoofing mechanism is to protect planes from manportable systems (which are pretty much all IR guided) during take off/landing (because manportable systems cannot reach up to cruising height, and presumably any larger threats would be picked up because they're BIG and hard to smuggle).

What is wrong with America & American Airlines

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.

Re:What is wrong with America & American Airli

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. [nytimes.com]

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

Example 3. [aircraftre...center.com] (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:What is wrong with America & American Airli

Why spend $11 billion to stop a threat that is basically non-existent? Those incidents you pointed out happened in insecure areas, and even then they didn't succeed. The threat to American passenger planes in the US (and really 99% of everywhere else) is so small you probably can't even measure it. This is a boondoggle that will do nothing other than take tax money and put it into the hands of defense contractors. That money could be put towards something far more productive than this, and something that could save far more lives.

Ultimate safety is not possible, and it's not even desirable (IMHO of course). If we spent this much money on protecting every conceivable way for terrorists to attack us, we would go bankrupt. Preventative action is only possible to a certain extent. Take care of the low-hanging fruit, then let the rest of it be handled by law enforcement.

Re:What is wrong with America & American Airli

You may want to reconsider that statement, Iran Air Flight 655.

You may want to reconsider that statement, Iran Air 655 was downed by a radar guided SAM [wikipedia.org] launched from a warship. These lasers are to stop man portable [wikipedia.org] IR guided missiles, and would do nothing to stop a radar guided missile

Re:Israeli lobby

This is the work of the Israeli lobby. The technology used is designed by and used on El-Al (the national Israeli airline). They've been heavily campaigning in the US for a contract. Quite frankly those $11 billion dollars belong somewhere else.

The article says that the system being tested was developed by BAE which is a British company.

Hard to see how BAE could be very close to an Israeli defense company given that 1) the largest single contract BAE has outside NATO is to supply aircraft to Saudi Arabia and 2) the UK government imposed a partial embargo on sales of military equipment to Israel after Israel broke a previous undertaking not to use UK supplied arms in the occupied territories.

This is not about pork, that will come later on. Its about trying to create the illusion of safety and quite likely give a pump to the start wars boondoggle. Its a pretty idiotic idea regardless. The way to stop people shooting down planes is to hand out a slotting to anyone who does: an accountability approach.

Terrorism cannot be avoided with these measures.

A german police chief was asked on TV the day of the London bombings what extra measures should be taken. He said: "None. The measures are effective as they can be; we cannot avoid all terrorist attacks just as we cannot avoid all crime." I was impressed, He was a really intelligent man. A shame nobody bothered to inform the manufacturers and proponents of this system about this particular wisdom.

I think they already know...

> A shame nobody bothered to inform the manufacturers and proponents of this system about this particular wisdom.

You don't get people to pay you $11 billion by telling them that your product is a waste of time and money.

That said, I'm impressed that someone in law enforcement had the guts to be honest like that on TV. I wish we had some of them.

RPG Threat

The real threat is someone standing at the end of a runway (on a building top or in a road) and firing an RPG. Didn't the IRA do that? Seems that RPGs would be easier to get then frickin' heat-seeking missiles.

This seems like overkill given the threat level. I'm willing to live with the risk of heat-seeking missiles shooting me down in mid-flight.

Umm, isn't that the opposite of what you want?

Number of passenger planes shot down by heat seeking missiles: 0
Number of passenger planes used as missiles: 3

So, err, don't you want the ability to shoot down passenger planes? Or is the next step to install "special" missiles on buildings that might have passenger planes flown into them in the future which can bypass the anti-missile system? And if that's the plan, what's to stop them bad guys (who are under every bed) from using those missiles to shoot down the planes?

Why?

Why do all of you people detracting from this hate freedom? Do you want the terrorists to win?

Unless some defence contractor can make $40 billion out of this, the terrorists have already won.

talk about crappy risk assessment

Let's see, 50,000 people a year in the USA die in car accidents. NONE have died from stinger missiles, but the war machine wants to keep people afraid and docile, so they'll spend billions on a defence that will likely never be needed, or if it is, will only kill a microscopic fraction of the total number of people who have ever flown.

In the meantime, they cut out all the funding for alternative energy funding in the last bill, so the USA can continue to be dependent on the oil tha sits under the homes and deserts of the people they want to defend their airliners against. Do we detect a pattern of utter stupidity here?

RS

For a guy who builds it

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.

Re:Feed the fear

I know this is slashdot and we love to hit the "right wing" but the biggest supporters of this stuff are Chuck Schumer (D)

http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/schumer_around_ny/record.cfm?id=264754& [senate.gov]

and Barbara Boxer (D)

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=4447425 [go.com]

Of course what is really happening with these two is that they don't care that much about the technology or the program but by pushing for it they can say "I told you so" if anything were to get shot down.

Re:Is it April 1st already?

In other news, New Zealand equips all tractors with laser guided missiles to protect against terrorist sheep

Thank you for one of the funniest mental images I've yet gotten from a slashdot post. Particularly since my imagination expanded on the scenario and had sheep after sheep with dynamite trapped to them throwing themselves at a tractor which kept zapping them with a laser. Would that I had Flash animation abilities. *sigh*

Re:how many?

Since the airplane laser is there to "jam" the missiles' optical/IR tracking instead of destroying them, it should certainly be possible to redesign the missiles' guidance system to use the airplane's anti-missile jamming laser as a homing beacon, turning the defense mechanism into a practical bull's eye target.

Since laser light is directional, a simple pin-hole shadow mask in front of a CCD would be enough to compute a satisfactory approach vector to keep the target within re-capture range.

Like many DHS and other agencies' schemes, they may initially look good on paper (particularly to the uninformed public) but are likely to be proven worthless money sinkholes practice since they rely on the premise that terrorists will be unable to adapt... much like the MPAA was banking on AACS, HDCP and BD+ never being broken. At best, I think this is a $40B money scheme to make the promoters' friends richer.

Re:how many?

As this is the same system that's been used by the US military for years, and no other world armies we've faced have yet been able to adapt despite multi-billion dollar yearly defense budgets, what makes you think Al Qaeda's going to have better luck?

If defeating the system sounds so simple to you, perhaps you should pitch your idea to one of these foreign governments. Obviously, you've thought it through a lot more thoroughly than they have.

Re:how many?

Uh...I don't think you understand how these systems work. The missile *does* lock onto the laser source - by design. The sensor package then drives the seeker guidance unit to a different trajectory until the aircraft is no longer in the field of view of the seeker (in the process bleeding most of its energy as well). It is kind of like dragging a bull around by the ring through its nose.

Re:how many?

I could only see that being hard to defeat if the laser-firing device is dropped from the plane. Otherwise - if the missile identifies the source of the laser and homes on it, why would it steer out of the sensor FOV?

Look, if you don't know how IR guided missiles work, it's no use trying to make random guesses why this system wouldn't work, in your mind. The simple explanation is that the laser basically illuminates the edge of the IR sensor, making the missile think the target is way off to the side. The missile doesn't follow the laser, the laser feeds the sensor false information based on the fact that such IR systems are designed to follow radiant heat signatures.

Re:how many?

Simple modification is to skip all the intelligent target tracking and go ballistic. Requires more of the shooter. There are also systems that are wire-operated and lead to the target by the shooter. The range of weapons are too wide to provide any reasonable protection. And just about any machinegun [soldf.com], but probably not a submachinegun [soldf.com] will do a job of causing problems for a modern airliner. Only difference is that it may require that the shooter is a bit closer to the target.

So it's just a waste of money and it will only cause the below average Joe to feel a bit safer...

Not to mention...the United States

Friends like the United States. Remember that it was the United States that gave the Taliban the high teck wepons used against the Soviets in Afganistan.

Re:Just out of curiousity

This is just wasted effort. It would be better to spend the 40 billion dollars on training security staff.

This strikes me much like many other proposals: There are many other fields that a $40 billion investment would save many more lives. Improving car crash standards a bit, for example.

It's like banning the .50BMG in California because of it's usefulness to terrorists. Never mind that there haven't been many incidents worldwide of terrorists using it, much less in the USA/Europe. The only case I know of where it was used in a crime caused no fatalities - oh yeah, and it was the guy who built a tank out of his bulldozer. Not exactly a guy concerned with practicality. For the cost of a .50BMG rifle you can get a lot of explosives - which terrorists do have a history of using.

Yes, I'm performing risk analysis - I'm not saying that terrorists won't manage to shoot down a commercial aircraft with a manpad, but is it worth $40 BILLION to try to stop it? A full plane would average what, 300 people? Even if it saves a plane - that's $133 million per life saved. Makes health care look cheap.

Right now, going by history - 300 people X zero average incidents per year = 0 average dead per year.

I mean - this system isn't guaranteed to work, even if they do shoot a IR missile at the plane(and the odds are currently low that they will).

I think we need to step back and stop concentrating on air travel so much. I mean, the terrorists attack plenty of places other than airlines. That was, relatively speaking, a one time deal. We'd be better off spending the money protecting malls and schools.

Re:Several incidents

Hmm, despite being modded informative, the parent is quite badly informed in spots:

- The US warship, the USS Vincennes, which shot down the Iranian Airbus was *NOT* under attack by boats and the aircraft was not on final approach. Crew believed the Airbus was an Iranian F-14 and deliberately shot it down.

The straits of Hormuz are so narrow, it's impossible to *not* be near the Iranian shore. The same holds true, to a lesser degree, for the entire gulf.

- "In 1987, Islamic terrorists working with Libya blew up a British Airways 747 over Scotland."

Several problems with this statement: Firstly, The plane was not "shot down", as per the lead-in to your comment. Secondly, they were not Islamic terrorists - they were believed to be agents of the intelligence service(s) of Libyan (exactly who is unknown, the man convicted for the bombing may well end-up being found to have been wrongfully convicted, and may be released).

- "In 2000, the Islamic terrorist group, al-Qaida, attempted to blow up between six and twelve commercial airliners flying across the Pacific at the same time. This plot was discovered at the last minute."

This sounds a bit speculative, and you've provided little information. Can you provide more details and/or references?

- "A few years after that, Islamic terrorists based in the UK attempted to cause explosions on several airliners by mixing ordinary household liquids into explosive combinations while the plane's were in flight. This plot was foiled by inspectors who noticed several passengers attempting to board the aircraft while carrying unusually large amounts of legal but curious household chemicals."

This is utter rubbish.

Those charged had not bought tickets, so there's no way this plot could have been foiled just prior to boarding. Some didn't even have passports. Most of those arrested were not charged. The rest have not yet been tried. Even if those charged were plotting to blow up planes (and there is doubt), there is a shadow, nay a huge pall, over the viability of liquid, binary explosives being used by passengers to blow up aircraft.

Re:Exactly, it will never work

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] [wikipedia.org], 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] [yahoo.com].

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