Flight Guard is an
Elta ELTA may mean one of the following:
Broadcasting
* ELTA 1 HD, the first commercial HD cable television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* ELTA 2, a commercial music television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* , a television channel in Taiwan
O ...
Systems Ltd's brand name for a family of airborne systems for protecting civilian aircraft against
man-portable air-defense systems
Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) are portable surface-to-air missiles. They are guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters.
Overview
MANPADS were developed in the 1950s to provide military ...
.
Description
Elta ELTA may mean one of the following:
Broadcasting
* ELTA 1 HD, the first commercial HD cable television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* ELTA 2, a commercial music television channel in Bosnia and Herzegovina
* , a television channel in Taiwan
O ...
's Flight Guard is a missile detection and avoidance system that is installed on more than 200 military aircraft and helicopters as well as on several VIP commercial aircraft, and has been also installed in aircraft of the
El Al
El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (, he, אל על נתיבי אויר לישראל בע״מ), trading as El Al (Hebrew: , "Upwards", "To the Skies" or "Skywards", stylized as ELAL; ar, إل-عال), is the flag carrier of Israel. Since its inaugura ...
,
Arkia
Arkia, legally incorporated as Arkia Israeli Airlines Ltd ( he, ארקיע, ''I will soar'', ar, خطوط أركيا), is an Israeli airline. Its head office is on the grounds of Sde Dov Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is Israel's second-largest ...
and
Israir[ fleets that fly to high risk destinations.
In September 2003, a year after an attempt was made to shoot down an Arkia Israel Airlines ]Boeing 757
The Boeing 757 is an American narrow-body airliner designed and built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The then-named 7N7, a twinjet successor for the 727 (a trijet), received its first orders in August 1978.
The prototype completed its mai ...
in Mombasa
Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...
, Kenya in 2002 (2002 Mombasa attacks
The 2002 Mombasa attacks was a two-pronged terrorist attack on 28 November 2002 in Mombasa, Kenya against an Israeli-owned hotel and a plane belonging to Arkia Airlines. An all-terrain vehicle crashed through a barrier outside the Paradise Hot ...
), the Israeli Ministry of Transportation selected Elta Systems to perform advanced flight tests of Flight Guard for protecting its commercial aircraft. Part of the funding was used to obtain certification of the system by Israel's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The system chosen comprised a radar-based missile approach warning
A missile approach warning system (MAW) is part of the avionics package on some military aircraft. A sensor detects attacking missiles. Its automatic warning cues the pilot to make a defensive maneuver and deploy the available countermeasures to ...
system (MAWS) and countermeasure dispensing system. The system was chosen since it is specifically designed to defend low-flying aircraft against MANPAD
Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) are portable surface-to-air missiles. They are guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters.
Overview
MANPADS were developed in the 1950s to provide military g ...
s, such as those utilized in the attack in Kenya. The automated system uses doppler radar
A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the fr ...
to detect incoming missiles, before firing IMI-designed civilian flares as decoy
A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''ende kooi'', " duck cage") is usually a person, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to lu ...
s against incoming infrared-homed missiles. It was planned that the production flares used would be invisible to the human eye.
Controversy
The system has proved controversial, with both Switzerland and the FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
in the US raising fire hazard safety concerns. The Swiss have stated that any aircraft with the system installed will be grounded, despite uncovering a plot to down an El Al aircraft in that country; other European countries have indicated that they might follow suit.
Future development
Although Flight Guard was approved by the Israeli CAA and several other countries, the Israel authority decided to buy a laser-based jamming system called Multi-Spectral Infrared Countermeasure
An infrared countermeasure (IRCM) is a device designed to protect aircraft from infrared homing ("heat seeking") missiles by confusing the missiles' infrared guidance system so that they miss their target (electronic countermeasure). Heat-see ...
(MUSIC) which began development in 2008, that does not use flares.
See also
* CAMPS
* Common Infrared Countermeasures program CIRCM, the Common Infrared Countermeasures program, is a United States Army initiative intended to develop a lightweight, low-cost and modular laser-based infrared protection system for U.S. helicopters and light fixed-wing aircraft. The technology ...
* Northrop Grumman Guardian
The Northrop Grumman Guardian is a passive anti-missile countermeasure system designed specifically to protect commercial airliners from shoulder-launched missiles (commonly known as MANPADS), using directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) t ...
* AN/ALQ-144
The AN/ALQ-144, AN/ALQ-147, and AN/ALQ-157 are US infra-red guided missile countermeasure devices (IRCM). They were developed by Sanders Associates in the 1970s to counter the threat of infra-red guided surface to air missiles like the 9K32 Strel ...
- Infrared guided missile countermeasure system
* Directional Infrared Counter Measures
Directional Infrared Counter Measures (DIRCM) are a class of anti-missile systems produced to protect aircraft from infrared homing missiles, primarily MANPADS and similar simple systems.
Earlier infrared countermeasures like flares or hot ...
* 2002 Mombasa attacks
The 2002 Mombasa attacks was a two-pronged terrorist attack on 28 November 2002 in Mombasa, Kenya against an Israeli-owned hotel and a plane belonging to Arkia Airlines. An all-terrain vehicle crashed through a barrier outside the Paradise Hot ...
- attack was co-ordinated with the shootdown attempt.
* List of airliner shootdown incidents
Airliner shootdown incidents have occurred since at least the 1930s, either intentionally or by accident. This chronological list shows instances of airliners being brought down by gunfire or missile attacksincluding during wartimerather than by t ...
References
External links
(Photographs and technical specifications)
{{Products of Elta
Missile countermeasures
EL M 2160
Weapons countermeasures