DEFENDING commercial aircraft from shoulder-launched missiles could be done at half current estimates, a Royal Aeronautical Society counterterrorism meeting heard last week in London.
US firms such as Northrop Grumman are developing lasers to fry a missile’s heat sensor and send it off-target, as an alternative to magnesium decoy flares, which would mean metal raining down on residential areas near airports at 2000 °C. The lasers come in at $1 million per plane, however.
Now Saab Avitronics of Sweden has developed a system that costs $500,000. Spokesman Goran Karlström says that while it still uses expensive missile detectors, it ejects a low-cost chemical that ignites on contact with air, burns at around 100 °C, and turns to cool ash before it hits the ground.
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Saab plans to test the system on the jet of a European head of state.
