Seduction is becoming an increasingly important activity for UK aerospace and defence systems group Meggitt.
A successful seduction can result in a person's life being irreversibly changed; in Meggitt's case, it results in aircrew's lives being saved. The 1999 Allied air campaign in the Balkans resulted in a marked increase in demand for the ALE-50 towed decoy, which is reeled out from combat aircraft to seduce surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) from their intended targets.
"The US government immediately trebled our production rate from 100 to 300 and we've been told that rate will continue for the next three to five years," says Terry Timms, Meggitt's managing director, defence systems. Following the Balkans conflict, "we had a number of letters from pilots congratulating us on the effectiveness of the towed decoy. I think there were 10 confirmed missile lock-ons... and every time the decoy lured it away." Ironically, he adds, the only Allied aircraft to be shot down was an Lockheed Martin F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter - which did not employ towed decoys.
Smarter
Now, he says, "we're well down the road with the next system, where we¹ve teamed with Raytheon."
Raytheon will provide the electronics, while Meggitt will handle areas including the launch and recovery system, the towing body and the canister into which it fits.
A major change in the new decoy - which is at present unnamed - will be a new, fibre-optic towing cable currently being developed by Meggitt.
With new, smarter SAMs coming into service, towed decoys will require more power to swamp the radar return from their parent aircraft. To do this, "we've developed a fibre-optic system that can generate up to eight times the power of the present system," says Timms. Fibre-optics can be used to handle very high power, but they are rather fragile. With that in mind, Meggitt has put the fibre-optic core down a Kevlar cable, which provides very high towing strength and heat resistance. Heat resistance is important as the decoy can be in the wash of the aircraft¹s afterburners. The structure and towing machinery of the new decoy is built by Meggitt, with Raytheon providing the electronics that decoy the incoming missiles.
Prototypes have been flown "and it's now a case of securing the funding through the US [government] system", says Timms, who detects "a bit of resurgence in the defence industry worldwide."
Source: Flight Daily News
