Should all Civilian planes be equipped with Anti-Missle defense? - General

In the light of the recent tragedy of the MH17 airplane that was shot down by a missle, I began to wonder, could this have been prevented if all civilian planes have counter measures against such attack? Why is it military planes can have an anti-missle defense such as flares and stealth to mask their heat signature while civilian planes are at the mercy of the sky? Had MH17 aeroplane had some sort of missle detecting system installed and with an anti missle counter measure, it would at least have a fighting chance against accidental attack. Some planes already have such system but by now, we ought to make all commercial airliners, equipped with technology to deflect or divert homing missles. And you might be saying, what if a terrorist hijack a civilian plane that has an anti-missle defense installed and our military jets cannot shoot it down fast enough to prevent it from crashing into a building? Let me remind you that a jumbo jet is slower than a fighter plane and any fighter plane can easily shoot it down with bullets anyways.

A civilian plane does not (should not) have a need for anti-missile defences, it would cost way too much and would never actually be used.

Far, far too expensive if you equipped it on all aircraft. The better solution I would think would be what Israel uses - Iron Dome. Rework it so that it's effective for surface to air, instead of surface to surface, and run some tests to see if it can hit targets approaching 30K feet. Hell, 60K would be quite the feat, but up to 40K would be most practical.

[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;45429538]Far, far too expensive if you equipped it on all aircraft. The better solution I would think would be what Israel uses - Iron Dome. Rework it so that it's effective for surface to air, instead of surface to surface, and run some tests to see if it can hit targets approaching 30K feet. Hell, 60K would be quite the feat, but up to 40K would be most practical.[/QUOTE] And do what, cover the entire planet with those launchers? You'll never know where the plane will get attacked. I [I]guess[/I] you could place some of them in areas with ongoing military conflicts, but that's still a massive area to cover. Also, don't some civilian planes have laser countermeasures designed to mess with the missile's targeting system? [editline]18th July 2014[/editline] Yeah, hardly any planes use it, though [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_Guardian[/url]

No, it's too expensive and it shouldn't be needed, hope I don't come off as too cynical saying this but this is a kind of knee-jerk reaction to what happened. Perhaps planes that are flying over high tension areas could have them but I don't think all of them should be equipped with those.

[QUOTE=mobrockers;45429246]A civilian plane does not (should not) have a need for anti-missile defences, it would cost way too much and would never actually be used.[/QUOTE] I have to agree with this as well. Those sorts of systems are both expensive and take up a fair bit of space. Civilian aircraft shouldn't be flying over warzones in the first place. The fact that people were flying over the parts of Ukraine where there was fighting is the part that needs to be changed. It's almost as if passenger air services didn't take the conflict there seriously, which seems like the real problem here.

[QUOTE=Dark Kite;45429958]I have to agree with this as well. Those sorts of systems are both expensive and take up a fair bit of space. Civilian aircraft shouldn't be flying over warzones in the first place. The fact that people were flying over the parts of Ukraine where there was fighting is the part that needs to be changed. It's almost as if passenger air services didn't take the conflict there seriously, which seems like the real problem here.[/QUOTE] No, what needs to change is people killing each other. There was no reason for that plane to be targeted and shot down.

Too much money, very little return. Ordinarily, civilian aircraft are never engaged in combat, even in war-zones as long as they stay out of the no-fly zone. Whether MH17 was the result of a fuckup or malicious intent, its one the exceptions, not a rule.

All planes? Certainly not. I do believe some should be equipped with them, depending on where they're flying through. Most civilian aircraft are not at risk of shootdowns. FedEx, however, currently uses them on certain cargo planes, and I imagine they're used on more planes flying through the Middle East, for example. They have little use in most areas, but they're more practical over there.

missiles are too advanced today to be evaded by civilian airliners or any sort of countermeasure you equip them with, worse if you did equip them with some sort of workable missile defense system, the missiles will just get better and over come the counter measures. also did i mention that civilian aircraft are not designed to manuver to avoid these things, they're flying at them at mach 3.5 they lack the sophisticated radar to warn them and lack the power to evade them [editline]18th July 2014[/editline] equipping civilian planes with countermeasures won't do them any good, they are just not even close to being able to deal with military weapons designed to track and take down aircraft as successfully as possible. military aircraft especially the planes designed to defeat these missiles are built specifically to do this and even then its a gamble its like putting a draft horse in the kentucky durby, theres no way it could compete

[QUOTE=mobrockers;45430473]No, what needs to change is people killing each other. There was no reason for that plane to be targeted and shot down.[/QUOTE] Good luck with that, at least in the near future that won't change. It's just too expensive to be worth it, also planes like MH17, if attacked, even with countermeasures, really have no chance of surviving.

perhaps a better and more cost effective idea would be to simply stop shooting down civilian planes.

if that ever needs to become implemented then society is all kinds of messed up thats my opinion

While it'd be nice, it's too expensive to put on every plane, and honestly, how often does it really happen that planes are shot down?

Yes it is expensive but Civilians Security is must be first priority for the Government so such security equipments needs to be installed.

[QUOTE=austinjohnson;45454069]Yes it is expensive but Civilians Security is must be first priority for the Government so such security equipments needs to be installed.[/QUOTE] If we're just looking to save civilian lives there are much better ways to do it. Almost anything that will reduce driving fatalities is pretty much guaranteed to save many times more lives. Your chance of dying in a plane crash is much lower than in a road accident, and hence your chance of dying in a non-accidental plane destruction is lower, and the chance of specifically being shot down by a missile is basically nil. How often do you actually hear of commercial airlines being shot down by missiles? How many fatalities per year is it? Based on the incidents listed on Wikipedia it's about 28 deaths per year since 2000. It's an expensive fix for a problem which is basically non-existent and pretty much no one should be specifically worried about.

Equipping civilian planes with anti missile defense would be like equipping cars with a parachute. It will be expensive ( you need a lot of differents type of defense to protect you from most type of missiles; chaffs and flares for IR missiles, various jammers for the EM missiles, a stealth design with the adequate paint layer to reduce radar signature, ... ) inconvenient ( It needs a lot of maintenance, is heavy and takes precious space ) , and useless in 99.99% of accidents.

Knee-jerk: Check Expensive: Check Worthless: Check Answer: No. Civilian planes shouldn't be flying over active warzones anyway, that's fucking stupid. The chances of being shot down is pretty much zero and the fact it happened ONCE because countless airliners are greedy skinflints who wanted to save a few extra dollars by flying though a warzone is not valid cause for this to happen. Not to mention how impractical the entire idea of how exactly missile defense would work on a passenger jet really is.

I think at the very least efforts should be made to make sure civilian planes can detect if a missile is headed for them. Anti missile systems would just be far to extreme and costly. Though the price of said systems would probably go down if every airline had to buy them.

[QUOTE=darkrei9n;45456156]I think at the very least efforts should be made to make sure civilian planes can detect if a missile is headed for them. Anti missile systems would just be far to extreme and costly. Though the price of said systems would probably go down if every airline had to buy them.[/QUOTE] Detecting for a missile launch will only do you so well. If it is all that the system is doing, it's pretty much telling you that you are doomed. If you want to go that route, I would rather have a RWR to tell me if I'm being painted in the first place.

It's unnecessary. This is a rare attack, and while it is tragic, it's going to be a very long time before it happens again. It's not like this is a common occurrence, I assure you it's quite the opposite. [editline]21st July 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=darkrei9n;45456156]I think at the very least efforts should be made to make sure civilian planes can detect if a missile is headed for them. Anti missile systems would just be far to extreme and costly. Though the price of said systems would probably go down if every airline had to buy them.[/QUOTE] There's no point to this either. All that would do is make them aware that they're going to die, it wouldn't stop anything without an actual defense system. Another problem to this idea would be that the costs of airline travel would most likely go up quite a bit, to cover the immense costs of adding missile defense systems to every last one of their airliners.

Civilian jets don't get shot down. Period. MH17 was an extremely, extremely rare event.

The most I would warrant is some emergency flares to break lock.

No, avoid warzones would be cheaper and easier. And most planes already carry flares

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;45476937]The most I would warrant is some emergency flares to break lock.[/QUOTE] The problem is telling if you have been locked on, I'm not sure the cost or how public that technology is.

All Israeli commercial aircraft are fitter with the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Guard"]Flight Guard[/URL] air defense system. In the future they're supposed to be upgraded to [URL="http://www.janes.com/article/34673/israel-tests-skyshield-c-music-against-live-threats"]Skyshield[/URL].

[QUOTE=Sally;45477044]The problem is telling if you have been locked on, I'm not sure the cost or how public that technology is.[/QUOTE] IR missiles are passive. It's physically impossible to tell if you've been locked, so your only chance is looking out the window and see them coming.

Planes shouldn't be getting shot down. MH17, Iran Air Flight 655 and Korean Air Lines Flight 902 are all rare cases. Detection of being locked on and then plus destroying the missile with a high concentrated laser beam = too expensive and too heavy. You couldn't really equip a commercial airliner with flares as even if it flare it couldn't do any maneuvers as the gforces would tear the plane apart and so the missile still has a high chance of hitting.

That would fairly expensive, and who's to say that every single civilian plane really require Anti-Missile defenses on it. Just avoiding war zones or areas with high tensions would be cheaper and a hell of a lot safer.

[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;45429538]Far, far too expensive if you equipped it on all aircraft. The better solution I would think would be what Israel uses - Iron Dome. Rework it so that it's effective for surface to air, instead of surface to surface, and run some tests to see if it can hit targets approaching 30K feet. Hell, 60K would be quite the feat, but up to 40K would be most practical.[/QUOTE] Lol. The iron dome shoots a missile at the missile to stop it. It costs 20,000$ per missile. In addition, pilots would need to have an extra crew member expertise in aiming the Iron dome. I'm not sure about the effective of the iron plane while moving at a very high speed, considering that the plane is moving quite quickly as well. Lets not forget that it costs 50 million dollars per battery, and the iron dome can hold up to 9 batteries (Future plans will allow it to hold up to 15 batteries) If you really expect planes to spend 450$ on the BATTERIES of the iron dome per plane, good luck. In addition, the iron dome is too big and heavy for the plane. If this does get implemented, flights could cost a minimum of half a million per passenger, depending on plane size.