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Missile Defense on Commercial Airlines

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current event by VnutZ on 07 January 2008, tagged as aviation, technology, and defense

Commercial airlines may soon be retrofitted with an on-board missile defense system. Mounted between the landing gear, the pod will detect incoming missiles and then frazzle them with a laser. Initial tests will take place on American Airlines 767 flights to determine the overhead impact on the industry - things like maintenance, fuel efficiency, etc. The measure is in response to the Department of Homeland Security's concerns over the availability of black-market RPGs and terrorists shooting down aircraft during take-off and landing. A spokesman for American comments, "When you look at the cost benefit, it would be an extremely expensive proposition, and in the end, is it really going to work?" Of course, pilots could always give passengers the "BIAP Death Spiral Landing" [video] experience to mitigate missile attacks.

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I Doubt It by VnutZ :: NR8

I seriously doubt this will come into widescale production. ANYTHING extruding from the fuselage will incur a change in aerodynamics with some form of drag. The airlines are going to complain about the fuel cost incurred for this - or they'll just pass it on to the consumer. Either way, somebody is going to be miffed considering missile strikes on domestic carriers simply don't happen. And if they did happen? Is this laser really going to be the solution? Okay - so you thwart the missile and it careens back to Earth to blow up a playground full of school children. Awesome.

Posted 07 January 2008, Hide, Reply