Essay About Air Missiles And Enemy Aircraft

Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners From
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Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners from
Terrorist Missiles
Introduction
Shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), also known as MANPADS
(man-portable air defense systems), developed in the late 1950s to provide military
ground forces protection from enemy aircraft, are receiving a great deal of attention
as potential terrorist weapons. These missiles, affordable and widely available
through a variety of sources, have been used successfully over the past three decades
both in military conflicts1 as well as by terrorist organizations. The missiles are
about 5 to 6 feet in length, weigh about 35 to 40 pounds, and, depending on the
model, can be purchased on the black market anywhere from a few hundred dollars
for older models to upwards of almost a quarter million dollars for newer, more
capable models. Seventeen countries, including the United States, produce manportable
air defense systems.2 Shoulder-fired SAMs generally have a target detection
range of about 6 miles and an engagement range of about 4 miles so aircraft flying
at 20,000 feet (3.8 miles) or higher are relatively safe.3 Most experts consider aircraft
departures and landings as the times when it is most vulnerable to shoulder-fired
SAM engagement. There are a number of different types of shoulder-fired SAMs,
primarily classified by their seekers.4
Types of Shoulder-Fired SAMs
Infrared (IR)
Infrared shoulder-fired missiles are designed to home in on a heat source on an
aircraft, typically the engine exhaust plume, and detonate a warhead in or near the
CRS-2
5 Schaffer, Op Cit. p. 2.
6 Ibid., p. 3.
7 “Raytheon Electronic Systems FIM-92 Stinger Low-Altitude Surface-to-Air Missile
System Family,” Janes Defence, October 13, 2000, p. 3.
heat source to disable the aircraft. These missiles use passive guidance, meaning that
they do not emit signals to detect a heat source, which makes them difficult to detect
by targeted aircraft employing countermeasure systems. The first missiles deployed
in the 1960s were IR missiles. First generation shoulder-fired SAMs such as the U.S.
Redeye, early versions of the Soviet SA-7, and the Chinese HN-5 are considered
“tail chase weapons” as their seekers can only acquire and engage a high performance
aircraft after it has passed the missiles firing position. In this flight profile, the
aircrafts engines are fully exposed to the missiles seeker and provide a sufficient
thermal signature for engagement. First generation IR missiles are also highly
susceptible to interfering thermal signatures from background sources, including the
sun, which many experts feel makes them somewhat unreliable.
Second generation IR missiles such as early versions of the U.S. Stinger, the
Soviet SA-14, and the Chinese FN-6 use improved coolants to cool the seeker head
which enables the seeker to filter out most interfering background IR sources as well
as permitting head-on and side engagement profiles. These missiles also employ
technologies to counter decoy flares that might be deployed by targeted aircraft and
also have backup target detection modes such as the ultra violet (UV) mode found
on the Stinger missile.5
Third generation IR shoulder-fired SAMs such as the French Mistral, the
Russian SA-18, and the U.S. Stinger B use single or multiple detectors to produce
a quasi-image of the target and also have the ability to recognize and reject flares
dispensed from aircraft – a common countermeasure used to decoy IR missiles.6
Fourth generation missiles such as the U.S. Stinger Block 2, and missiles believed
to be under development in Russia, Japan, France, and Israel could incorporate focal
plane array guidance systems and other advanced sensor systems which will permit
engagement at greater ranges.7
Command Line-of-Sight
Command line-of- sight (CLOS) missiles do not home in on a particular aspect
(heat source or radio or radar transmissions) of the targeted aircraft. Instead, the
missile operator or gunner visually acquires the target using a magnified optical sight
and then uses radio controls to “fly” the missile into the aircraft. One of the benefits
of such a missile is that it is not as susceptible to standard aircraft mounted
countermeasure systems which are designed primarily to defeat IR missiles. The
major drawback of CLOS missiles is that they require highly trained and skilled
operators. Numerous reports from the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s cite Afghan
mujahedin as being disappointed with the British-supplied Blowpipe CLOS missile
because it was too difficult to learn to