AARON KARP / WASHINGTON DC
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is to fund the development and demonstration of countermeasures systems to protect airliners from shoulder-fired missiles under a two-year, $100 million programme. None of the funds will be used to deploy systems and the DHS says there is no expectation that any anti-missile technology will be deployed before 2005.
A request for proposals is imminent, and an industry day has been set for 6 October. The "aggressive" two-phase programme will re-engineer military technology for commercial aviation use, and is a formal follow-on to the broad area announcement by the DHS in May that drew 90 responses. Of these, eight concepts were shortlisted and further information requested.
Phase I will be a six-month analysis of the economic, manufacturing and maintenance issues involved in producing and supporting systems effective against the man-portable air-defence system (MANPADS) threat to airliner. The 18-month Phase II will include the development and demonstration of prototypes using existing technology. Congress appropriators have agreed to provide the DHS with $60 million for fiscal year 2004, which begins on 1 October. House of Representatives homeland security appropriations chairman Harold Rogers says Congress also plans to fund the programme with $60 million in fiscal year 2005.
US Transportation Security Administration chief James Loy earlier this month testified to the US Senate that "one of the most important projects taking place" at the DHS is developing technology to address the MANPADS threat. Some members of Congress say deployment of systems on airliners should be done as quickly as possible. House aviation subcommittee chairman John Mica has estimated that equipping all 6,800 commercial jets in the US fleet with anti-missile systems would cost $7-10 billion, or $1-2 million per aircraft.
Flight International's Counter-measures conference will now take place in Washington DC on 28 January 2004. For more information contact Sallie Edwards on sallie.edwards@rbi.co.uk or +44 (0) 208 652 8718.
Source: Flight International
