The recent German decision to equip its official aircraft with systems against Man Portable Air defence systems (MANPADS) is part of a renewed threat alert concerning these shoulder launched missiles.
Germany is to install missile defense systems on three new government jets that are used by senior leaders, the Spiegel news outlet reported last week.
In recent months there is a renewed interest in systems that can protect aircraft from shoulder launched missiles. Israeli companies that make these systems have been contacted mainly by operators of business jets that fly in areas where these missiles are in the hands of terror organizations.
Israeli sources said that the demand can be partially explained by the great number of humanitarian flights connected with the war in Ukraine that are performed by business jets.
According to an Arms Control Association website report, a Small Arms Survey has identified reports of illicit MANPADS in over 32 countries and territories since 2011, despite the global campaign to counter their illicit proliferation.
These reports include the imagery of dozens of advanced systems acquired by non-state actors, including Russian proxies in Ukraine prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar. Although the vast majority of MANPADS are in national stockpiles, terrorists and other non-state actors have acquired the anti-aircraft missiles through deliberate transfers, the black market, or theft.
Israel was confronted with the threat of MANAPDS in 2002 when two such rockets, were launched in the direction of an Israeli passenger aircraft that took off from Mombasa in Kenia . The rockets missed the aircraft and it continued its flight and landed safely in Tel Aviv. Following this incident, the Israel ministry of defence asked the defence industry to find a solution to the threat.
The first system was based on dispensing decoy flares but it was soon followed by a more advanced one. The Elbit Systems Music protection systems was the first operational system that was installed on Israeli passenger aircraft of the Israeli airlines. The Directed Infra Red Counter Measure (DIRCM) systems developed by Elbit Systems are made to defend aircraft from ground-to-air missiles that home on the heat of the aircarft’s engines.
The different versions of the Elbit MUSIC systems combine a compact, extremely dynamic mirror turret, a high frame rate thermal camera, and cutting edge laser technology.
According to the Israeli company, the innovative combination provides efficient, dependable, and reasonably priced protection for all kinds of aircraft under all operating conditions. Elbit says that the systems can be easily linked with any kind of MWS (missile warning system) and other defensive aids on any kind of aircraft.
The Israeli government has chosen Elbit Systems’ DIRCM systems to safeguard Israeli commercial airliners while the Israeli Air Force has chosen them to safeguard military platforms. NATO has chosen them to safeguard the multi-national A330 MRTT fleet program. Another customer is the German Air Force, which has chosen them to safeguard the A400M national program.
But the big market is the VIP and business aircraft around the world. Elbit would not reveal the number of different types of its Music systems that were sold in this market, but sources said that it is “impressive.”
Another Israeli company that developed such protection systems is Bird Aerosystems . Its SPREOS, an integral part of the AMPS MD system, combines a Semi-Active Dual Band Radar and Directional IR Countermeasure. Queued by the Missile Warning Sensors, SPREOS points towards the suspected threat, performs a Doppler-based interrogation to confirm the existence of a valid threat, and extracts its key parameters. In addition, SPREOS precisely tracks and points an advanced 5ht generation solid-state Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) towards the threat for the most effective jamming of the missile while continually assessing the jamming effectiveness.
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