AN/ALE-55 Fiber-Optic Towed Decoy
The AN/ALE-55 ( JETDS designation) or " Fiber-Optic Towed Decoy " ( FOTD ) is a towed system for electronic countermeasures for the protection of fighter aircraft. It is produced by the British company BAE Systems.
Description
The ALE -55 is based on the trailing bait concept of AN/ALE-50-Systems and to protect against radar-guided missiles to the carrier platform. It can be used on the one hand as the ALE -50 as a radar bait, on the other, as an active jamming. This provides a particular advantage over modern guided weapons, which means the "home -on- jam" - ( HOJ ) technique can detect the source of interference as a target and fight, as they now intrude on the towed system and the carrier aircraft no longer threaten.
The system itself consists of several towed radar baits, a starting device and a control system. The baits rely on command the boot device and to be pulled by a cable in a few dozen meters behind the machine. The system remains operational even with strong maneuvers and can survive the hot exhaust gases of an afterburner engine. The bait should be made and destroyed, the cable is collected, and subjected to an additional lure. If this, however, the threat survives intact, it may also be collected and later used again. In contrast to the ALE - 50, the ALE -55 is connected using a fiber optic cable to the onboard electronics, so that the trailing bait can have access to their computing power and thus is a full-fledged modern jammers. Generally, the towed part of the system, only the antenna, since the incident or bait signal is on board the carrier aircraft already fully " made " and then transmitted, only by the towed part. In order to achieve particularly high radiation power, two traveling-wave tubes are used in parallel. The system is also integrated into the AN/ALQ-214-EloGM-Komplex. This also results in the possibility of covering a much wider frequency range because the jammer can work on board the carrier platform and towed in part independently in different frequency ranges.
The system has been operational since 2006 and the U.S. Navy has procured some models for testing on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
Operation
The engagement process of the system is divided into three phases: Once the onboard radar warning system support platform detects an enemy missile, the jamming system on board the aircraft with high radiation power tries to avoid detection during the search phase. If this fails, then the jammer of the ALE -55 is activated, which is now trying to pick up the targeting of enemy missiles by means of the towed jammer. If this does fail, the system disables the jammer and enabled the bait mode, which turns the towed jammer in a radar decoy, which produces a significantly larger radar cross -section than the carrier platform, thus it represents a more attractive target for the missile. Parallel Chaff is also expelled through a decoy on board the carrier aircraft to confuse the approaching missile on.
Platforms
- F- 15 Eagle
- F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
- B-1B Lancer