All-spectrum awareness: if helicopters are to fly and fight, their crews need to be aware of all potential threats--hostile radar, laser emitters and incoming missiles and projectiles. EW system houses have developed a range of warning systems priced at a level which rotary-wing operators should be able to afford.

Summary

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Electronic Warfare

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All-spectrum awareness: if helicopters are to fly and fight, their crews need to be aware of all potential threats--hostile radar, laser emitters and incoming missiles and projectiles. EW system houses have developed a range of warning systems priced at a level which rotary-wing operators should be able to afford.

There is probably no air force whose flying schools are immune from the legend of the mother who, on hearing that her son had qualified as a military pilot, admonished him to "always fly low and slow". This is hardly good advice in terms of fixed-wing flight, and in combat "low and slow" is a recipe for being shot down.

Unlike their fast-jet contemporaries, helicopter pilots have no choice but to fly low and slow, a flight regime which exposes them to anti-aircraft weapons, many of which are radar-guided or infrared homing. The development of laser beam-riding missiles and even specialised anti-helicopter rounds fired from tank guns means that yet another part of the spectrum needs to be monitored for possible threats.

Threat-warning systems fall into four main classes:

* Radar warning receivers (RWR)

* Laser warning receivers (LWR)

* Hostile fire indicators

* Missile approach warners (Maw).

Such sensors can be used simply as alarm devices, allowing the crew to begin self-protection manoeuvres, or the manually controlled rele...

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