DEFENDING commercial aircraft from shoulder-launched missiles could be done at half current estimates, a Royal Aeronautical Society counterterrorism meeting heard last week in London.
US firms such as Northrop Grumman are developing lasers to fry a missile’s heat sensor and send it off-target, as an alternative to magnesium decoy flares, which would mean metal raining down on residential areas near airports at 2000 °C. The lasers come in at $1 million per plane, however.
Now Saab Avitronics of Sweden has developed a system that costs $500,000. Spokesman Goran Karlström says that while it still uses expensive missile detectors, it ejects…
