LE BOURGET, France – Raytheon Co. said yesterday it has developed a high-powered microwave beam in Tucson to defend airliners from missiles and is urging the U.S. government to deploy it at major airports.
Lame…
Protecting the 30 biggest US Airports @ US $25 Million each with a star-warsian beam system will protect 70% of US flights from attack by shoulder-fired missiles.
How many shoulder fired missiles have *EVER* been launched at civillian planes? 3.
Ever.
2 of those were at the same Israeli plane taking off from MOMBASA, and the third was at a freighter landing in BAGHDAD…
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to just put that 750 million dollars in a slush fund against the possibility of attack? Like the Schnieder Trophy, or the X-Prize?
“If your loved one’s airliner is successfully shot down by a shoulder-fired missile while arriving or departing a US Airport, we will divide the $750 Million dolllars (with accumulated interest) among the legal next of kin.”
Typical load factor these days is .8 (80% of seats across all aircraft are full).
Typical aircraft carries A “Typical” aircraft being:
717 = 120
727 = 125
737 = 130
747 = 500
757 = 220
767 = 250
777 = 340
MD80 = 130
A319 = 125
A320 = 150
RJ50 = 50
RJ70 = 70
or so…
Typical aircraft at typical load factor is 140 people.
If your DH’s aircraft is shot down by a shoulder fired missile, we (the FAA) will send you a check for $5,350,000 (Tax free, of course) for each loved one you had on that aircraft.
I suspect that a husband who loses his wife and two children who were flying down to Texas to visit the Mother In Law would consider some 16 million dollars to be an adequate sum with which to assuage his grief.
Hell, there are proabably more than a few unhappily married husbands that would shoot down the plane themselves for that kind of scratch.
the problem there is, if they are shoulder launched, someone is going to need to be monitering the skys 24/7, and be on alert to shoot at a moments notice. otherwise by the time the alarm is sounded and the shooter takes aim, its going to be too much of a time frame lost to make it effective
The news article (linked at “Raytheon Co”) describes an automatic system… Missile goes up, IR detectors go off, microwaves target the missile, confusing it into…what? Ballistic flight?
Oh, great…now we have an unguided Stinger that’s going to come down not so much like a heat seeking missile, but rather an artillery round, I suppose?
I kinda like the idea. One problem I see with this plan is that immediately the FAA (who would presumably have control over the fund) would decide that the missile that shot down the plane wasn’t a shoulder fired variety but a semi-portable or small turret mounted missile.
Thus they would get to keep the money (since it would be in a locked fund with very specific disbursement criteria) and the federal government would get to lobby for more money to put the original plan in place.
And yes, there would be a sudden flood of illegal shoulder fired missile sales in the US after that.
😉