BAE Systems and Leonardo partner on aircraft survivability suite

BAE Systems and Leonardo UK have received US government approval to develop an interoperable aircraft survivability suite, the companies announced on 15 February.

The suite will combine BAE Systems’ AN/AAR-57 Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) and Leonardo’s Miysis directed infrared countermeasure (DIRCM) package, resulting in an enhanced aircraft survivability.

The AN/AAR-57 CMWS detects incoming hostile fire and missile threats, alerts crews, and automatically cues countermeasures. It is deployed across the US Army and allied nations’ rotary- and fixed-wing fleets.

More than 3,000 CMWS units have been installed on over 40 different types of aircraft and the system has logged more than four million combat flight hours.

Miysis provides dependable, persistent protection from IR man-portable air defence systems (MANPADs). It works by overwhelming a missile seeker head with a sudden stream of coded laser energy that can disable multiple threats simultaneously.

BAE Systems says this layered defence system will protect aircraft and their crews against new and advanced threats in the most complex battlespaces.

‘International customers who operate the AN/AAR-57 now have a fast, simple and low-risk way to equip their platforms with gold standard DIRCM protection against infrared missiles,’ Tony Innes, VP sales radar and advanced targeting at Leonardo, noted in a statement.

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

Miysis DIRCM

AN/AAR-57 CMWS