Quote:
Originally Posted by tsk1979 Jeroen, quoting you since you may be aware of this thing.
When the Russians shot down airliner, USA made GPS open for civilians, so that aircraft do not stray off the intended flight path.
Now, when USA carrier Vincennes shot down iran air flight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Vin...ht_655_tragedy
using a SAM, I think most modern SAM systems adapted. Now SAM high altitude systems do not lock onto aircraft if there is a civilian transponder in the aircraft. Civilian protection in BUK should be manually disengaged by someone.
Now since BUK actually shot this down, it means, somebody deliberately removed this safety lock.
This takes it from "Oops" to "willful attack".
Is this true. Do the BUK systems and all major SAM system have this civilian safety lock to avoid the scenario which happened with Iran Air? |
Yes, the so called Korean Airlines incident, flight 007. Happened in 1983 and based upon this accident then US President Reagan issued a directive making GPS available for civilian use, free of charge. It still needed a lot of development at the time, but it did happen and it has become more accurate for civilian use over the years as well.
All commercial airliners have so-called transponders. They come in different versions, but on commercial airliners it will be at least a mode-C transponder. It means when interrogated by secondary radar it will broadcast a code (assigned by ATC and manually entered by the crew) and the (pressure) altitude.
I am not really familiar with weapon system. I'm very much interested in military planes, but more in the design, production and operation of the plane itself, rather then it's offensive or defensive systems.
So I might be wrong, but to me it doesn't make sense to have an automatic friend or foe lock on a weapon system. Let me explain; if you are flying a (spy) plane and you want to enter into a certain airspace you don't belong or are not supposed to be, how to go about it. Well, you could try to remain undetected (lots of stealth technology required) or you pretend to be a friend.
So, I have never understand how squawking a certain code makes you friend or foe. Mind you, military transponders and civilian transponders work differently and have very clearly distinguishable signals. But then again, anybody can pick up a civilian transponder and install it in a plane. You would have to file a flight plan and get a squak code from ATC, but just because you are in the civilian system doesn't mean you have to be a friend perse.
So, deciding friend of foe, I would think, needs to be done by the operator, i.e. requires human intervention, not a computer.
But again, I'm no expert so I leave it to the more military/weapon specialist on the forum to comment.
Jeroen