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FedEx: equip aircraft with countermeasure against heat-seeking missiles [pdf]
- kube-system 5y agoThis isn't FedEx's first rodeo into aircraft defense systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_Guardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_Guardian
- CoastalCoder 5y agoWould a typical person-launched SAM do enough damage to bring down a multi-engine plane such a as 737? I'm assuming such missiles home in on precisely one engine. But AFAIK, planes like that are supposed to be operable on only one engine. I imagine the missile would do some damage to nearby parts of the plane as well, and I'm curious how likely that is to be survivable.
- HPsquared 5y agoHard to tell, the planes are not designed or certified to survive attack by surface-to-air missiles. The systems just aren't designed with that assumption in mind.
- knute 5y agoAn Airbus A300 was hit with a portable SAM over Baghdad in 2003. The missile struck the wing instead of the engine and caused the loss of all hydraulics. The crew was able to land by steering with the engines. So while this aircraft did survive, it very easily could have gone the other way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_sho...
- nickff 5y agoPerson-launched SAMs are known as MANPADS. A number of these missiles have been fired against civilian aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-portable_air-defense_system#Against_civilian_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-portable_air-defense_syste...
- tomatotomato37 5y agoEven if the place survives a hit the costs in both opportunity while the plane is down and repairs out-weigh the cost of equipping it with relatively cheap countermeasures.
- t0mas88 5y agoUnlikely to be survivable for an airliner. Most air to air missiles are designed not to hit the target but to blow up close to it and destroy the aircraft using the shockwave. So it may target an engine exhaust but the explosion will damage the wing and main fuselage as well.
- nickff 5y agoIt depends on the missile, some designs also have metal rings that are designed to expand and damage or sever the aft fuselage. The sidewinder is an interesting example, as some different versions have used different warheads.
- AmericanBlarney 5y agoYou know the wings double as fuel tanks, right?
- CoastalCoder 5y agoYes, but I also suspect that many airplanes have safety systems (e.g., emergency fuel cutoff valves) which I'm ignorant of. So I'm not really qualified to make guesses on this topic.
- HideousKojima 5y agoFear of a threat from Russian (or Russian-aligned/equipped rebels) forces shooting down FedEx planes, or a secret DoD plan to convert FedEx's fleets into weapons platforms?
- dsp 5y ago> a secret DoD plan to convert FedEx's fleets There is the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, of which FedEx is a member. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Reserve_Air_Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Reserve_Air_Fleet
- ezconnect 5y agoFedEx plane are everywhere some of them are probably doing signal intelligence for a long time.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- coolspot 5y agoLast time those rebels used Buk^, which is radar-guided, so IR-countermeasures won’t help. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system
- petre 5y ago“On 19 June 2019, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service charged four people with murder in connection with the shooting down of the aircraft: three Russians, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, and one Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 The only rebel on that list is possibly the last one, the Ukrainian guy, although I'm not so sure about him either. All the others are vereran Russian military officers who fought in Afghanistan and Northern Caucasus. The first guy is a former FSB officer. Currently all of them are wanted war criminals.
- 5y ago
- shadowgovt 5y agoWas there an inciting incident to induce FedEx to head in this direction?
- ttobbaybbob 5y agothey dont mention any specifically, but say: "In recent years, in several incidents abroad, civilian aircraft were fired upon by man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). This has led several companies to design and adapt systems like a laser-based missile-defense system for installation on civilian aircraft, to protect those aircraft against heat-seeking missiles"
- nefitty 5y agoJesus. How much do those pilots get paid? Like $60k/year?
- Turing_Machine 5y agoGlassDoor says FedEx pilots make an average of $239k/year, plus some bonuses. That's still not enough to have missiles fired at you, IMO.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoWidely varies. It's a crappy "time working for this specific employer" based seniority system.
- cronix 5y agoYes, it's described in the application.
- Scoundreller 5y agoMH17? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 I believe fedex also overflies many territories that might be hostile to US interests. I believe they continue to overfly Belarus, after most US/EU passenger aircraft have stopped.
- ttobbaybbob 5y ago"Infrared laser energy can pose a hazard to persons on the aircraft" "affect a flight crew’s ability to control the aircraft" How would the infrared laser impact the aircraft originating the laser (i assume there's no way the laser would be pointed at the aircraft its mounted on)?
- somesortofthing 5y agoIt could bounce back from a reflective surface somehow and hit a cockpit or cabin window, though you'd need to be flying really low or at an unreasonably steep angle to be concerned about that. They're probably just trying to cover all possible bases though.
- VLM 5y agoThey could be implying its an all-aspect jammer which is effective against air to air missiles while only verbally discussing the ground threat. Civilians always think of ECM and jamming like a smooth omnidirectional output, yet it seems to me pretty obvious a kaleidoscope like randomish distribution would work much better as a jammer, so they have to assume that 0.00001% of the time the entire laser beam might hit water and reflect right back into their eyes. I suppose a REALLY smart AI controlled jammer could actively control its jamming signal to never output power in a direction that would reflect back at the plane, which would probably shimmer at like 10000 Hz as the plane wiggles thru the sky, so on average the plane would be well protected. You know its a REALLY bad neighborhood if they try stealth technology to defeat incoming radar guided missiles. That's really hard core air transport operations. Kind of makes you wonder if "ufo sightings" aren't air force stealth air transport vehicles. AFAIK there are no unclassified stealth air transport vehicles, but you'd think that would be terribly useful if you don't have total air superiority so either us or the Russians must have at least blueprints somewhere for something like a B-2 that can carry people and/or a tank or two. Or maybe fedex will restart the B-2 production line...
- karaterobot 5y ago"Please turn off all cell phones and other electronic devices, including energy weapons."
- cl42 5y agoThis is slightly off-topic, but between this and the articles on raids on LA trains[1], I really do feel like we are living in a Snow Crash universe. [1] https://theweek.com/crime/1008994/thieves-raid-rail-cars-for-shipped-consumer-packages-la-news-crew-reports-from-litter https://theweek.com/crime/1008994/thieves-raid-rail-cars-for...
- javert 5y agoThe train robberies and breakdown of civil order in CA remind me of Atlas Shrugged much more than Snow Crash.
- nefitty 5y agoI'm not really clear on why people are surprised about these thefts. Isn't train robbery a western film trope? Maybe we've culturally forgotten trains, but they're the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. Train chicanery was even an integral part of the civil war.
- w0de0 5y agoIn America, the train hasn't been that vital to infrastructure since the era that inspired the trope. Trucks move 7 times more value annually [https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/2017-north-american-freight-numbers https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/2017-north-american-freight-num...].
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoFrieght rail carries a stupid amount of goods. If you use a carrier like Hub Group or JB Hunt to ship containers cross country odds are the bulk of the mileage is on rail. This is doubly true for bulk goods. Nobody is hauling bulk goods very far by truck. If you live in a major urban area you'd never see it though because the intermodal facilities tend to be at or beyond the beltway (more efficient to truck the last 20-100mi).
- Symbiote 5y ago
- coolso 5y agoWas the order of the wording of the title deliberately chosen to make people think FedEx wants heat seeking missiles on their planes?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago"Heat seeking missile countermeasures" seems pretty obviously about countering heat seeking missiles at least to me.
- azinman2 5y agoYes when you read it in full without skimming. But when you put so many modifiers on a given predicate, it’s easy for the human mind to skip the one that changes the context. Another way to get might be “FedEx proposes defense against heat-seeking missiles”, where defense can get separated out. I’m sure even better writers could find a way that simplifies and reduces likelihood for comprehension error.
- selimthegrim 5y agoanti-HSM countermeasures
- joemi 5y agoI personally had no problem interpreting the title correctly, but I see that it could be interpreted as the heat seeking missiles are the countermeasures against something else. Not sure it warrants being changed, though.
- dang 5y agoOk, I've reordered the title to squeeze an 'against' in there. (Submitted title was "FedEx proposes equipping aircraft with heat-seeking missile countermeasure [pdf]")
- lsllc 5y agoIs this going to be an extra-cost option when shipping? [ ] Saturday Delivery [ ] Signature Required [X] SAM Protection
- hammock 5y agoIt will definitely get FedEx a discount on their reinsurance policy for freight service. Picturing myself signing up for State Farm renter's insurance in a place like Portland, Oregon: "Does your apartment building have a system-wide fire alarm? A barbed wire fence? A SAM site?" What 80's futuristic action movie is all of this from?
- nefitty 5y agoWhat is SAM?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tastyfreeze 5y agoSAM is surface-to-air missile.
- nefitty 5y agoThanks kind stranger. And the people who downvoted me for asking, eat my short.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- louky 5y agoWe (unamed BBS collective kids in US) back in the 1980s developed a simple IR seeking short range rocket from Radio Shack and Heathkit stuff. Nothing nefarious indended, just Hmm how can we solve this problem that nations are. OG hacking intent frankly. Instead of a payload detonating it popped a chute, as was the fashion of the day.
- RegnisGnaw 5y agoI'm feeling like we're in a Cyberpunk universe, everyone will soon go around fully armed :)
- smegger001 5y ago>everyone will soon go around fully armed welcome to rural america
- throwaway946513 5y agoJust without the Cyberpunk design aesthetic :(
- rpmisms 5y agoI'm looking forward to firearms as a fashion statement.
- jeffrallen 5y agoMy tattoo says "poor impulse control", how about yours?
- hammock 5y agoWhat are the advantages of an IR laser, as opposed to flares which seem to be a more conventional and widely-used countermeasure?
- VLM 5y agocapex vs opex. Unless they burn the laser out its pretty cheap to operate. Also its going to be very difficult to file an insurance claim with evidence that grannie or some amateur astronomer or hunter looking thru binocs got cataracts because a specific fedex plane flew over, but when a flare starts a fire there's usually enough debris in the wreckage to prove where it came from.
- Someone1234 5y agoLower maintenance, lower cost, and higher safety. Having something that is designed to start a fire permanently attached to an aircraft isn't ideal even at the best of times. If you're going in/out of warzones, the trade-offs could absolutely make sense but as a "standard feature" a IR laser is inexpensive and works "well enough."
- tyingq 5y agoEl-Al has flown with anti-missile defense on commericial aircraft for a while now. Flares since 2004, at least: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/24/air.defense/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/24/air.defense/ , and probably upgrades since. This isn't all that newsworthy to me. I assume FedEx flies into a variety of places where they could be a legitimate target. This probably just means the laser technology is now affordable enough to justify installing it. Edit: A link to a military anti-missle IR countermeasure device. Might be helpful to see how they work: http://img.bemil.chosun.com/nbrd/data/10067/upfile/201503/20150309073151.pdf http://img.bemil.chosun.com/nbrd/data/10067/upfile/201503/20...
- aaron695 5y ago
- flyinglizard 5y agoI believe there are DIRCM systems in use now which blind missile seekers using gimbaled laser beams. The one offered by Elbit and in use on some Israeli airliners is called C-MUSIC: https://elbitsystems.com/pdf/c-music/ https://elbitsystems.com/pdf/c-music/
- KennyBlanken 5y agoThat infographic designer really phoned it in. "Diverts missiles away from your plane...to the airport terminal!"
- tyingq 5y agoThat's great...missed it when I looked before. Like he couldn't find an angle to show it directed onto some far side of the runway apron in the grass. Nope. Right into the gate area.
- jfengel 5y agoHave they ever actually needed it? Did it work?