Middle eastern airliners have missile defence systems on their planes,how did that thing work?

Question

Middle eastern airliners have missile defence systems on their planes,how did that thing work?

Answer 1

Generally, when an aircraft has an anti-missile system, it has either chaff or flairs. Chaff (I believe I am spelling it properly) is more or less a cloud of shrapnel ejected out the rear of the craft after a missile has been fired at it. The missile can confuse the shrapnel for its target and detonate before the craft is in danger. A flare works the way you see flare guns in movies, and often will attract the attention of heat-seeking missiles.

Answer 2

A few companies are working on a laser defense system that can ID, track, and engage a missle. The laser would lock onto the head, or seeker section of the missle and fry the guidance sysems, or cook off the fuel and the warhead, they are also trying to make one for the Stryker APC in Iraq against RPG's.

Answer 3

The Civillian Aircraft Missile Defense Systems are mostly for IR missiles. I am not aware of any civillian missile defense system that gives protection against radar guided missiles using chaff.

The reason is that the primary threat to civial aviation is the MANPADS which are exclusively cheap IR systems. So civillian defense systems like Saab CAMPS or FlightGuard use IR decoys, commonly known as Flares to confuse the attacking missile. The decoys emits similar IR radiation as the engine exhausts and this makes the missile confused and *probably* go for the decoy.

Answer 4

It's a deflection system that fires multiple objects so the missiles will go after the objects..

Answer 5

They use what is referred to as 'chaff' - basically, when they detect a missile locking on, they dump out a bunch of metallic foil pieces which confuse the missiles targeting system. If it's a heat seeking missile, they also send out flares that burn more intensely than the engine exhaust.

Answer 6

They have IRCM "InfraRedCounterMeasures".  These consist of active-the plane emits or does something, and passive-design elements.  Ideally, one wants both.  Passive IRCM would be heat absorbing paint, suppressors on the engines etc.  Active is dispensing flares or heated decoys, and maneuvering.  

An airliner ain't that maneuverable so dispensing expendables is the primary countermeasure.

In order to release the flares/decoys at the right time, many systems have IR detectors, calibrated to detect the launch flare of a MANPADS.  For laser-guided, dispensers can disperse aerosols or even smoke that disperse the targeting beam.  

(Chaff is strips of coated aluminum cut to 1/2 the wavelength of a target radar.  It creates a huge radar return and moves the centroid of the radar target (jet and chaff) away from the jet.  MANPADS are either laser or IR guided...)

Answer 7

They do a combination of two things. The autopilot of the aircraft will go through a series of evasive maneuvers while at the same time releasing countermeasures from the tail of the plane. What these are basically are flares so the heat coming from the flares is supposed to confuse or attract the missles which are basically heat seeking.