Manpads
Introduction
Since their development in the early 60’s, some estimates point out that close to one million MANPADS have been produced and exported worldwide. With some of these weapons currently being in the wring hands, efforts have been made to counter their obvious threats especially to civilian aircrafts.
Planning of future airports to minimize MANPAD threat
Future airports can use advances in technology to their benefit to minimize MANPAD threat. . Some of the design considerations that can be utilized by airports include installation of ground based systems that utilize high-energy lasers as well as microwave energy to deflect missiles. According to Price (2009), DHS has been in the frontline in spearheading the use of current countermeasure technologies such as the use of aerial vehicles that are unmanned around the airports. Such aerial vehicles have laser jammers installed in them which have been said to be very effective in destroying as well as deflecting missiles. Such are the factors that future airports might take into consideration in their design efforts.
Building of systems into new designs
Kirshner, J. (2006) argues that it may be very costly to build systems into new designs and he notes that some of the programs that have already been launched to develop antimissile systems mostly for civilian airliners have consumed millions of dollars. As an attempt to forecast the cost of coming up with new systems to minimize MANPAD threat, we recently had DHS coming up with an initiative that was designed to determine the efficiency, viability as well as the cost of the installation of antimissile systems aboard civilian airliners (Price 2009). Some of the proposals for design of new systems include the use state of the art systems that are specifically designed to divert heat seeking missiles away from an aircraft. Such systems include flare dispensers as well as light beams installed in the various civilian planes. Such systems are already installed in military aircraft and though their success rates cannot be said to be 100%, they can at least offer some level of protection for civilian aircraft.
Conclusion
It is good to note that to fully mitigate the effects of the large number of MANPADS in the hands of terrorist groups, all stakeholders should join hands and adopt measures aimed at protecting civilians who are the most vulnerable to the use of MANPADS.
References
Kirshner, J. (2006). Globalization and national security. CRC Press
Price, J.C (2009). Practical aviation security: predicting and preventing future threats. Butterworth-Heinemann
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