Northrop Grumman Guardian

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FedEx McDonnell Douglas MD-11 in the Guardian's flight test program (mounted under the fuselage)
Guardian under FedEx MD-11 during flight tests
Guardian on a 747 in May, 2006
Guardian on a 747

The Northrop Grumman Guardian is a passive missile defense system for civil aircraft from Northrop Grumman . It was used to defend against light infrared guided one-man surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS), such as. B. Stinger and Strela .

background

In the last few decades, portable surface-to-air missiles have spread rapidly around the world. For example, the Taliban came into possession of such missiles through the delivery of Stinger missiles from the USA during the war in Afghanistan . The collapse of the Soviet Union itself also contributed to the fact that such systems could soon be bought for less than 5000 US dollars on the global black market for weapons. After z. For example , civil aircraft were attacked with such weapons in Mombasa in 2002 , Baghdad in 2003 and Mogadishu in 2007 , the United States Department of Homeland Security initiated a program in January 2004 to modify military missile defense systems for civil aircraft. It is estimated that of the fewer than 100,000 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile launchers (MANPADS) produced, some have ended up in the hands of non-governmental organizations. In 2001, according to Jane's Intelligence Review , 13 of these groups had shoulder-mounted air defense systems. Some of them are considered terrorist. In addition to al-Qaeda and its sub-organizations, these include a. the FARC , Hezbollah and the LTTE . 14 other non-governmental groups are believed to have such systems in place.

In terrorist attacks between 1975 and today, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles have been successfully used against commercial aircraft in up to 40 cases with up to 760 fatalities . The growing concern after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the unsuccessful attacks in Mombasa (2002), Baghdad (2003) and later in Mogadishu (2007) first led Israel to consider the use of flare systems in commercial aircraft. The move made in the US Congress to make this compulsory on certain routes was not implemented in 2006 because of dubious benefits, for reasons of cost and the opposition of the airlines.

Development and technology

The system is equipped with a multiband infrared - laser equipped and interferes by blending the infrared seeker heads of the incoming missiles. It is based on the military AAQ-24 Nemesis System, which is used for example in the C-17 , MC-130 and CV-22 . It works fully automatically and uses a series of sensors to detect approaching missiles based on the heat radiation emitted by their engine. This information is processed by computers and passed on to a target escort system, which aligns the laser with the missile and thus causes the missile to deviate from the target. Unlike with flare systems , this means that the pilot does not need to notice the missile has been launched, which is almost impossible due to his limited field of vision.

The system, which costs around one million US dollars (per unit), is attached to the underside of the aircraft in a detachable container that is 18 inches long and weighs around 250 kg.

commitment

According to the manufacturer, the system reached 12,000 operating hours on 2,500 scheduled flights in mid-October 2007 and has so far been installed in nine civilian wide-body aircraft.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Small Arms Survey 2004. Rights at Risk. Ch. 3 - Big Issue, Big Problem ?: MANPADS

Web links

Commons : Northrop Grumman Guardian  - collection of images, videos and audio files