“STEALTH IN REVERSE” FOR NEW DECOY DRONE

“A decoy drone being devel­oped through an $88 mil­lion, five-​​year demon­stra­tion project will fea­ture stealth in reverse,” the Associated Press reports. The hope is “that enemy anti-​​aircraft bat­ter­ies will tar­get it and reveal their posi­tion.“

Instead of try­ing to evade radar like a stealth fighter or bomber does, the decoy only 9 feet long and weigh­ing 200 pounds will use elec­tronic sig­nals to project a larger-​​than-​​life image.
The Miniature Air Launched Decoy, of MALD, is intended to fool enemy radar oper­a­tors into believ­ing it is a real air­plane, say engi­neers with the Air Armament Center at this Florida Panhandle base.
The ruse is designed to prompt an enemy response that may include turn­ing on radars that guide anti-​​aircraft artillery and mis­siles. U.S. war­planes trail­ing the drones then could fire mis­siles that home in on such radars to knock out the air defenses.

THERE’S MORE: “Stealth is reverse” is an old, old tac­tic, notes Defense Tech pal Wyatt Earp. The Brits, the Israelis, and the Americans have done it for years.

June 18th, 2003 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.