FedEx wants to put anti-missile defense systems on its airplanes … again! That’s
right! For over 12 months, 10 FedEx cargo planes equipped with a laser-based anti-missile system
flew regularly in the US airspace back in the 2000s.
But why those laser systems were initially installed, and then removed,
and why a transport company needs military type equipment installed on its airplanes, is …
In 2003, an Airbus DHL Express cargo plane took a hit from a shoulder-fired missile,
shortly after taking off from Baghdad in Iraq. The missile damaged one of the wings,
disabling some of the hydraulics, but the crew was able to land the airplane without any casualties.
The weapon that was used is commonly known as MANPADS. They are portable, relatively
inexpensive and fairly simple to operate, making them very attractive to terrorist groups.
Over the years, many MANPADS have ended up in the arms black market,
which has become a serious issue. Because since 1975, more than 60 civilian aircraft have been
shot down using MANPADS resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 people.
One of the lessons learned from 9/11 was that a commercial US aircraft downed by terrorists
would not only mean tragic loss of life, but also massive problems for the US economy.
According to a 2005 study by the RAND Corporation, the direct cost would approach $1 billion dollars
for every aircraft downed. But the indirect costs to the economy would be far greater,
due to the immediate system-wide shutdown of air travel in the hours or days to follow,
and people’s reluctance to fly in the weeks and months to come.
In response to this growing threat to commercial aviation,
in 2003, the US Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security to develop and
implement a plan for protecting commercial aircraft from MANPADS.
The program was called Counter-MANPADS and it leveraged existing and proven anti-missile
military technology. But it had to be adapted and evaluated for commercial applications. Homeland
Security partnered up with two massive defense contractors, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman.
BAE Systems developed JETEYE… not Jed-i, JET-EYE, which was more of a distributed system,
with the components installed on different parts of the airplane.
In contrast, Northrop Grumman developed Guardian; a pod that could be mounted to the
underside of the fuselage which contained all the components needed to neutralize incoming missiles.
Both systems could identify and track incoming missiles, then shoot a powerful infrared laser,
which wouldn’t directly destroy the missiles, but would confuse them, and that was enough to
neutralize the threat. MANPADS have sensors that track the heat signature from the exhaust of an
airplane’s engine and use that to follow and hit the target. By shining a laser at the missile,
its heat-seeking sensors are overwhelmed and cannot successfully track the airplane anymore.
BAE SYSTEMS installed JETEYE on three American Airlines 767 passenger planes.
Northrop Grummon’s Guardian pods were installed on 10 FedEx MD-10 cargo planes.
If you’re wondering whether they ever did live-fire testing on these systems,
the answer is yes, but it’s not what you think!
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The live-fire tests were conducted, not on an actual flying airplane equipped with
the anti-missile systems. Instead, they were shot toward a gondola!
The testing was done in 2007 at the Aerial Cable Range, a part of White Sand Missile Range,
in New Mexico. Guardian and JETEYE were attached to an elevated gondola which
emulated the heat signature of a boeing 747. And then missiles were fired toward the gondola.
It may sound strange, but this is not an uncommon practice. Live-fire testing with actual flying
airplanes is quite costly, because you could be destroying a functional airplane. The Aerial Cable
Range allows for the use of inexpensive aircraft mockups or stripped fuselages, or gondolas!
In addition, the cables allow for precise control over the elevation and speed of the vehicle,
so tests can be reproduced quite accurately at a fraction of the cost. That cable is made out
of Kevlar, because a steel cable of similar size would not be able to even support its own weight!
All tests showed that both systems met the effectiveness requirements of the program,
meaning that they could successfully identify and neutralize missiles being shot at them. But in
2008, Guardian and JETEYE systems were uninstalled from FedEX and American Airlines' aircraft. They
never made it into large-scale operations, because of 3 major roadblocks: Reliability,
Cost and Export Complications.
The data collected over 16,000 flight hours showed that even though Guardian and JETEYE
could neutralize threats effectively, both would become un-operational due to system errors,
way more frequently than was acceptable in commercial aviation environments.
These systems were also quite expensive, costing about $1M per airplane.
Not only this would put a huge burden on airlines,
which were already struggling with very thin and sometimes negative profit margins,
but the additional drag and weight as a result of installing these systems could cause some
of the longest international routes to become unprofitable, and in some cases unachievable.
A bigger issue, however, was technology export. Guardian and JETEYE use military technologies
that fall under the US Munitions List, meaning that when an aircraft equipped with those systems
leaves the United States, that is considered an “export of the technology”, which is illegal,
unless an export license is acquired. But US airlines depend heavily on foreign maintenance
centers and their employees when flying to international destinations. Providing
system installations and maintenance data to those foreign persons would also require
export licenses. Complying with these regulations will cause serious operational and logistical
problems for US airlines, and also put a huge burden on the US Export Licensing systems.
Fast forward over a decade, to October of 2019, when FedEx applied for a
supplemental type certificate to install a laser-based missile-defense system,
similar to the ones tested before, but this time, FedEx was gonna pay for it.
Having some of its cargo planes equipped with a defense system would be a huge advantage to FedEx,
not only as an insurance against potential attacks, but also by enabling FedEx to fly
to destination and through air spaces that would otherwise be considered too risky for defenseless
airplanes. This became evident in July of 2014, when the FAA told US airlines not to fly to Israel
in response to a rocket strike close to an airport in Tel Aviv. All US airlines had to cancel their
flights, costing them big time in lost revenue. But the Israeli El Al Airlines announced that they
will continue to fly from and to Israel as usual. That’s because El Al already had anti-missile
systems installed on their airplanes, giving them an edge. I suppose FedEx wants that edge!
So on January 18th, 2022, on behalf of FedEx, the FAA filed a proposal with
the US Department of Transportation, to seek special conditions for the laser installations.
But only 2 days later, the FAA withdrew their proposal,
citing the need for “further internal study” and “to avoid confusion to the public”.
The thing is, laser systems sit at an intersection of multiple compliance requirements;
from the FDA approval and classification, to the FAA certification and allowance for operation.
You can just imagine the lawsuits after a laser mis-fires and hits a person, or another airplane,
or a fuel truck. This is all In addition to the licensing requirement needed to
export military technologies. Until the public safety concerns are addressed,
and new export control legislations are in place, these technologies cannot
be installed on commercial airplanes flying domestically or internationally.