A ROW broke out last week over the likely cost of defending civil aircraft against attack by surface-to-air missiles. An influential think tank issued a report on 25 January that claimed fitting passenger planes with laser-based missile defences would be prohibitively expensive. But a major aerospace contractor hit back, saying the information is out of date.
In its report, the California-based RAND Corporation, a public policy analysis group, warned that fitting military laser technology on the US鈥檚 6800 civilian jets would be far too costly, at around $1.6 million per plane. But aerospace giant Northrop Grumman, which is developing such a system for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says this is based on 2003 data and that it is still on track to meet the DHS鈥檚 target of $1 million per plane 鈥� comparable with installing seat-back video systems.
However, the poor reliability of such systems would dramatically inflate maintenance costs, claims James Chow, the RAND report鈥檚 lead author. Today鈥檚 military missile defence equipment fails about once every 800 flight hours. If that failure rate was mirrored during civil operations, Chow projects extra annual operating costs of $300,000 per plane, or $2 billion for all US jets. That鈥檚 half what the US spends on all its transport security. 鈥淲e think that鈥檚 out of whack,鈥� says Chow.
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鈥淭he poor reliability of the proposed defences would dramatically inflate costs鈥�
Most shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles home in on hotspots on their targets. More than 700,000 of the missiles have been produced since the 1970s, and older models change hands on the black market for as little as $5000. Such missiles have so far shot down two commercial jets, and in November 2003 one damaged a cargo plane, which crash-landed safely in Baghdad (pictured).
The defence systems work by fooling the infrared sensors that guide the heat-seeking missiles. The simplest eject flares that burn hot enough to distract the rudimentary sensors of first-generation missiles, making the missile veer off course. But the sensors used on newer missiles look instead for specific infrared wavelengths in jet exhaust. These can鈥檛 be diverted by flares, but can be fooled by lasers of multiple infrared wavelengths, modulated to make the missile鈥檚 guidance system think the plane is headed elsewhere.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to be within DHS guidelines,鈥� says Northrop executive Jack Pledger. 鈥淎nd we are projecting we鈥檒l achieve better reliability than today鈥檚 systems,鈥� he adds.
Chow concedes that if Northrop and BAE Systems, which is developing a similar system for the DHS, can make them more reliable, 鈥渋t could be prudent to install them on commercial jets鈥�.
