BAE Systems to Demonstrate C-MANPADS on Passenger Aircraft

Air Safety Week, Jan 14, 2008

BAE Systems has received a $29 million contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to test an infrared aircraft missile defense system on revenue-producing passenger aircraft. The award relates to the Department of Homeland Security's Counter-MANPADS (C-MANPADS) program.

The flight program will evaluate the system's compatibility with daily passenger airline operations and maintenance. There will be no actual testing of the JETEYE system's missile-defeating capability, as that testing was done at government test ranges last year.

BAE Systems will install JETEYE aircraft missile defense systems on up to three American Airlines aircraft. An American Airlines spokesman said the device will be installed on Boeing 767s operating between New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles. A DHS spokesman said the contract calls for the planes to log a total of about 7,000 flight hours, meaning the in-flight evaluation should run from early spring to the end of 2008.

The American spokesman said that while the U.S. air carrier does not favor putting heat-seeking missile defenses on commercial transports, American is taking part in the evaluation to better understand the technologies that might be available in the future. He said keeping man-portable infrared ground- to-air missiles out of the hands of terrorists or using ground-based defenses would better protect jetliners.

The C-MANPADS program is designed to commercialize proven military technology and gauge its suitability for protecting U.S. commercial aircraft by evaluating its performance, impact on aerodynamic drag, weight, reliability, maintainability, and system cost.

Burt Keirstead, director of commercial aircraft programs for BAE Systems said "We're confident that the passenger-aircraft phase of the program will provide valuable data for DHS's findings, providing critical, fact-based information to the airline industry and policy-makers."

The JETEYE system is based on BAE Systems' directable infrared countermeasures technology, used to protect military aircraft. With this award, JETEYE will be the only system installed on both cargo and passenger aircraft.

"American Airlines is pleased to continue its partnership with BAE Systems and is fully committed to supporting and participating in the passenger airline evaluation phase of the DHS's Counter-MANPADS program," said Craig Barton, American Airlines managing director. "We believe this is a key step toward understanding the true impact of the technology and operational models on the airline industry."

American has been working with BAE Systems on the C-MANPADS project for the past several years. BAE Systems has conducted flights of its JETEYE system using a non-revenue producing American Boeing 767. JETEYE continues to fly on the 767 and was set to also fly on an ABX Air 767 freighter.

DHS is also working with Northrop Grumman, which is offering a competing airborne C-MANPADS system, called Guardian. Both BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman conducted live-fire tests of their countermeasure devices late last year at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

As part of Phase III of the C-MANPADS program, Northrop Grumman fabricated and installed its Guardian missile defense systems on nine Federal Express MD-10 aircraft in revenue service. As of late September 2007, more than 9,000 on-aircraft hours for Guardian (5,000 actual flight hours) was achieved. The goal is to complete 12,000 flight hours by March 2008 when the C-MANPADS project winds down. The firm also holds supplemental type certificates (STCs) for Guardian installations on McDonnell Douglas MD-11s and Boeing 747s.

According to Northrop Grumman's Jack Pledger, the operational test and evaluation portion of the C-MANPADS program is demonstrating Guardian's reliability and its ability to work on wide-body cargo aircraft. "We are on track to achieve a baseline mean time between failure of 3,000 hours," said Pledger, noting that added fuel burn has been negligible despite installation of a belly pod to hold the 500 pounds of defensive electronics.

"We have been able to collect valuable logistics data while operating Guardian on aircraft in routine commercial service. This data proves that the Guardian system is a viable concept for commercial applications to protect aircraft from today's modern MANPADS threats," he added.

Lawmakers inserted language into the fiscal year 2007 Homeland Security appropriations bill that set aside $30 million to $40 million to evaluate the feasibility of placing C-MANPADS technology on passenger aircraft.

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