Aircraft News Footage from Iraq

[Nefarious]

Watching the news today, it seems like Everytime the news shows footage of American Aircraft in Action, they show it firing flares.

Today I saw footage of F-16 over Iraq, It turned and rolled in on a target, Or thats what I was thinking. It turned and leveled out, I expected to see some bombs drop, but instead it released Countermeasure Flares.

Why?

Beside the obvious reason it's being fired upon by Shoulder launched SAM's. I know there's probably some Missile Sets being used by rebel's and terrorists In Iraq, Can F-16 RWR actually pick up these Missiles? Before thier fired or after?

The F-16 I saw today on the news doing it, didnt pull any evasives after the drop, instead he put his nose to the sky. A definate No-No. Especially for a Heat Seeking missile being fired from a rooftop.

Or are they acting as Fast Forward Air Contollers Maybe? Or possibly it freaks the Iraqi's out on the ground, especially if it's a big crowd rioting or something.

Any Ideas?

[gofaster]

Maybe they're posing for the cameras and going nose-high and dropping flares makes for a good photo.  

[Nilsen]

i THINK its standard procedure to drop flares whenever they go low to investigate something incase someone takes a shot at them. I know it ws standard for the norwegian "drivers" when they went in low to scare off or investigate targets in Afghanistan.

I have also seen it when c130's drop aid in unsafe areas just before and after they dropped off their pallets.

[Vermillion]

Unless there is something new that I'm not familiar with, shoulder fired SAM's are heat seekers.  Heat Seeker warheads are "passive" warheads, and should not have any affect on the RWR equipment in the aircraft.

And of course the flares are the proper countermeasure to the heat seeking SAM's.

Not sure why he would pull the manuever described unless he was rolling in to a target and the forward air controller called an abort on the attack run.  Just guessing.

[Virage]

I bet its SOP within the danger envelope of shoulder fired missles over hot/suspect areas.

cut&paste..

"Missile attacks have long been anticipated, and pilots flying into Iraq use a special spiral landing technique designed to stave off attacks. Pilots reduce their altitude to 4,500 meters above the airport and immediately begin a circular landing pattern that involves sharp banking turns and brings them to the ground within 4.5 minutes. Because the missiles travel faster than the jets, they also require more space to maneuver, so the landing pattern makes it much harder for a missile to hit its intended target. The maneuver, however, cannot protect planes at the time of take off or when they prepare to begin the landing procedure."

http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,7489_A_1039411_1_A,00.html

[Nefarious]

Originally posted by Vermillion
 Heat Seeker warheads are "passive" warheads, and should not have any affect on the RWR equipment in the aircraft.

Well I just meant whatever they use to detect IF threats.

[rpm]

Originally posted by Nefarious

The F-16 I saw today on the news doing it, didnt pull any evasives after the drop, instead he put his nose to the sky. A definate No-No. Especially for a Heat Seeking missile being fired from a rooftop.

Or are they acting as Fast Forward Air Contollers Maybe? Or possibly it freaks the Iraqi's out on the ground, especially if it's a big crowd rioting or something.

Any Ideas?

If you wanted to evade heat seekers, why wouldn't dropping flares and pulling straight toward the sun be a good idea? It would give multiple heat sig's for the missle to detect and would most likely lock on the sun. Correct?
They may have been working in Wild Weasle. Sending a guy out low and see what fires at him.

[LePaul]

Originally posted by GScholz
There is no way to detect an IR threat. If your extremely lucky you can see the flare or dust cloud as the missile boosts off the ground. After that the missile is smokeless and practically invisible. At night the missile's sustainer motor is visible, but that's about it. If you or one of your wingmen doesn't look in the right direction at the right time, you're not going to know what hit you.

Exactly right.

They can detect a radar painting them, but not a IR threat.

[Wolfala]

Guys -

They F-16's drop the flares as a pre-emptive countermeasure to any launch that might happen. Whether or not it happens or not is irrelivent - they take the CM package for the anticipated threat they expect to encounter.

[maslo]

well im not a pilot but its seems to mak sense, that you drop flares when you fly low, coz its not possible to detect thermal rockets.... and flares appear to be pretty hot

[Cobra412]

Anyone here trained in external and internal counter measures and the wide array of systems that are employed in combat on different aircraft?  Getting into what the capabilities of some countermeasure systems are is classified.  How they know and what patterns are used to defeat a particular weapon is beyond the knowledge of the average civilian and would never be discussed in such an open manner.  The basics of how chaff, flares and jamming systems are used is out there but how they are used against particular threats is not and never will be.

[Cobra412]

Tons of info there GScholz...Still no real insight or explanation on the systems detection and employment capabilities.  Keep looking cause I can say for sure you won't find what you really need in order to employ the devices effectively.

[Wolfala]

Originally posted by Cobra412
Anyone here trained in external and internal counter measures and the wide array of systems that are employed in combat on different aircraft?  Getting into what the capabilities of some countermeasure systems are is classified.  How they know and what patterns are used to defeat a particular weapon is beyond the knowledge of the average civilian and would never be discussed in such an open manner.  The basics of how chaff, flares and jamming systems are used is out there but how they are used against particular threats is not and never will be.

Cobra - in short yes. I'll supply a link to a paper I wrote on the matter.

Cheers,

Wolf


PAPER ON MANPADS AND COUNTERMEASURES

[Cobra412]

Nice paper Wolfala.  I can't go into detail but it is still lacking the one thing that many wanna know.  What aircraft can detect what threats and do they have a solution to defeat the weapons?  That is something that no one will answer because it's classified and even if they do know I strongly advise that it's kept to themselves.

[Wolfala]

Cobra,

Depending is the aircraft is CAS or Air superiority, they each have different CM suites. Some like the C17 use the AAR-47 Electro Optical MAWS. MAWS equipment is optimized for the mission profile. Some aircraft like the AH-64 and UH line are equiped with the AN/AVR-2 Laser warning set that warns of being painted by a beamriding laser. I could go on for pages - the point is this: IR munitions are passive devices, and depending if the MAWS is an active system in that it has a phased array searching for approaching missiles - not every aircraft needs that kind of full spectrum protection. An interceptor working at 40,000 ft doesn't need something to look for MANPADS at 15,000 ft. A helicopter or CAS aircraft would benifit from a MAWS suite like this - and its strictly determined by the mission profile and ANTICIPATED threat - that is key. Lay 1 out to the intel boys for this - you have SA-7, SA-14, SA-16 in theater, as well as small arms LMG, and heavy caliber AAA in some spots that doesn't require illumination of anytype.

I hope this comes closer to answering yr question. If you read up on the countermeasures specific section that deals with pre-emptive deployment and reactive - you will gain more insight.

Wolf