Electronic Weapons: July 4, 2001

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Elettronica is developing a new wingtip-mounted system that can spoof enemy radar-guided missiles. This would eliminate the need for towed decoys, which restrict the maneuverability of the aircraft using them and (since they are either destroyed during a mission or jettisoned before landing) would be expensive to continually replace. Worse, no tactical aircraft can carry more than four towed decoys, although they could face more than four enemy attacks during particularly intense missions. The new system, known as Cross-Eye, works by using two wingtip transmitters to broadcast slightly different versions of the same radar signal used by the enemy guidance system. These fool the computer monitors on the radar into believing that the target aircraft is actually a hundred yards or more to one side.--Stephen V Cole