Mobile Edition
Print
Get the Mag
Weekly UpdatesThe Obama administration in its 2010 budget has not requested further funding to test a controversial program to protect commercial aircraft from shoulderfired missiles.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The final operational tests to counter man-portable air defense systems, or manpads, marks the possible end of a six-year, $270 million effort to determine whether there was any "near-term" solution to protect aircraft from being shot out of the sky by these missiles.
Phase III operational tests end this summer, with a report due to Congress by the end of the year.
While the results of the final tests are pending, finger pointing has already begun.
A staffer from the House of Representatives said the Department of Homeland Security erred by settling too quickly on an aircraft-based solution.
"What happened with manpads is that somebody asked the wrong questions. They didn't say 'here's the threat. Someone shooting down a domestic airliner with a shoulder-fired missile. Give me solutions,'" said the staffer at a National Defense Industrial Association DHS science and technology conference.
"They already came with a solution--the military system ... They did not look at an array of options."
The department's science and technology directorate gave contracts to Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems to test theft respective counter-manpads directed infrared counter measure systems (DIRCMs) on commercial airliners. These systems were first developed to protect military aircraft in war zones.
The staffer said other possibilities could have been investigated. Perimeter defense at airports was one proposal. In 2007, the DHS science and technology directorate, under a congressional directive to explore alternatives to aircraft-based systems, launched Project Chloe, which was allegedly named after a character in the television show, 24. The proposal would have mounted DIRCMs on unmanned aerial vehicles circling 65,000 feet above airports.
Jim Tuttle, head of the directorate's explosives division, said the criticism isn't entirely fair.
Congress asked for "near-term" solutions, he told National Defense.
"The only solution that is near term, that is even three or four years, is DIRCM. It took even that long to take the military solution and adapt it to a civilian application. $o we did look at it all," he said.
A perimeter-based defense would take 10 times more money and five times longer, he said. There were individual components of Chloe that were mature enough, but as a system, the technology was years away from being fielded, he said. The Obama administration has not requested any funds to pursue this option, he added.
And like the aircraft-based DIRCMs, the price tag for fielding such a system would be high, analysts said at the time. There are more than 400 airports in the United States. How much would it cost to fly unmanned aerial vehicles around their perimeters 24 hours a day?
Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., has been the leading proponent of counter-manpads technology in Congress and has introduced legislation requiring their use on commercial aircraft. A spokesperson for his office did not return calls seeking comment.
A DHS document indicates that the idea of protecting commercial airliners from missiles may have been doomed from the start. A 70-page "official use only" DHS document leaked to the press in 2006 and posted on GlobalSecurity.org, laid out the major hurdles.
Economic, bureaucratic, legal and liability issues emerged even though it was shown that the military-based technology could successfully thwart a missile if fired at a commercial airliner, according to the report, which outlined preliminary results from Phase II testing.
The report noted that the DIRCMs could only defend against one missile at a time.
"Both contractors meet the requirement for successfully countering single missile engagements but do not meet the requirement for simultaneous time of impact dual missile engagements," the report noted.
The largest hurdle turned out to be maintenance and operations.
The 2006 report noted that the Defense Department's counter-manpads technology was designed to last hundreds of hours before breaking down. That is fine for military aircraft which fly hundreds of hours per year, and have access to maintenance depots and strong logistical backbones.
But commercial aircraft fly thousands of hours per year. A repair costs airlines time and money. Phase II and III testing were designed to see how onerous the logistical burden would be. DHS flew the systems aboard commercial passenger and cargo jets. The Phase III tests were due to end this summer.
Tuttle said in interviews that there hadn't been much progress made in this arena. Airlines need the DIRCM systems to last about 5,000 hours. Airliners go into major overhaul about every five years. Operators would want the systems to last about that long.
The contractors partly addressed this problem by creating a "sleep mode," the report noted. Commercial airliners would not need to run the system while cruising at high altitudes, only while taking off and landing since shoulder-fired missiles do not have long ranges. The system would simply be turned off during the majority of the flight.
The DIRCM would also be designated "not flight critical" equipment, meaning if there were a malfunction the aircraft could continue flying and the airline would not have to fix the problem for up to 10 days.
The cost estimates for outfitting the fleet of some 7,000 U.S. commercial aircraft also may be more than airlines are willing to stomach. It may come to as much as $1 mil lion per plane to outfit the first 1,000 aircraft. The estimated per flight cost of the system is $360. These estimates, however, are in 2003 dollars when jet fuel cost $1.25, and do not reflect the price spikes of recent years.
A second House staffer said that the counter-manpads program was a victim of bad economic timing.
The airlines "will not be able to purchase the manpad systems as they are. But if it were back in the lucrative days, it would be much more of an option," he said.
"I think that picture will change if the economy is a little stronger, and people have a little more leeway to spend on protection and everything. It's unfortunate that kind of thing tends to get cut first--the non-essential protection stuff--when funds dry up."
The DHS report to Congress acknowledged the airlines' reluctance to install the system.
"The risk remains moderate to high that the commercial airlines' economic business model, which emphasizes high reliability and low cost, would be adversely impacted by the current prototypes," it said.
Proponents of the program, pointing to the economic devastation airlines experienced after the 9/11 attacks, say a success ful domestic manpads assault on a commercial aircraft would be equally catastrophic.
The Air Transport Association, a leading critic of the program, agreed that manpads are a threat. Yet, it has released position papers criticizing the airplane-based approach. And it has questioned frequently quoted statistics on the worldwide number of manpad attacks on commercial aircraft. A Congressional Research Service report quoted a number of 40 civilian aircraft, of which 25 crashed resulting in the loss of 600 lives
The ATA said only four commercial aircraft have been attacked with shoulder fired missiles outside of war zones. And all were able to land safely after the attacks with no loss of life.
Along with airline acceptance, Congress has not addressed any of the export control issues outlined in the 2006 report. Since DIRCMs are based on military technology, they fall under strict International Traffic in Arms Regulation rules, which prevent such systems from being exported. A commercial airliner flying to a foreign airport with such a system aboard would require an export license from the State Department.
Knowledge and information are also part of the ITAR regime. Technicians repairing the systems would have to be U.S. citizens.
The program will not be a success unless the ITAR problems are addressed, the report said. But that wasn't all. There are insurance issues and Federal Aviation Adminstration hurdles to overcome.
If a DIRCM system failed, and an airline was shot down, then the airline might be liable.
Also, the FAA must certify the safety of equipment added to an aircraft model after it leaves the factory. As of 2006, three aircraft models involved in the operational tests had received certificates, but they only account for 5 percent of the U.S. commercial airliner fleet. Adding the counter-measures to foreign-built jets may also run afoul of ITAR regulations because the makers would have to share technical data with non-U.S, entities.
Further, there has been no testing on any of the smaller jets used by regional airlines.
Retrofitting the U.S. commercial airline fleet could take up to 20 years since the equipment would have to be installed during aircraft's five-year overhauls.
"Substantial intervention will be required among domestic carriers, aircraft manufacturers, and major airline maintenance facilities due to capacity limitations to equip aircraft, which for the commercial fleet, could take over two decades without stimulating production and building additional aircraft modification facilities," the report said.
One of the staffers suggested the pilot training might be another solution. It might be more cost effective to teach operators how to safely land an aircraft after being struck by a missile. Most of the weapons are designed to destroy small military aircraft, not large airliners, which may account for these survivability rates.
FEED