I Found an Interesting Item in a Picture of Air Force One

I was browsing the net and found a picture of Obama boarding AF1. There is nothing remarkable in that, but the item on the engine pylon is interesting. There is a small fairing right below the wing that has what looks like three flat lenses. I'm thinking that this is part of AF1's defensive counter measures against a heat seeking missile. If anybody knows anything about this that is NOT CLASSIFIED, I'd appreciate them sharing the information.

Cool find.

Sort of on the same topic, but is AF1 capable of crashing with the hull intact? I wonder this because of all the measures taken on The Beast to keep it from being destroyed. Is AF1 basically an indestructible plane?

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Cool find.

Is AF1 basically an indestructible plane?

or a UFO made to look like a plane incase its unidentified / classified attributes are needed

Interesting find. I too am interested in knowing what that is.

(Off topic, OP but I'm curious. I hate November as it is the start of the snow season and a long winter for this winter wussie. Why do you look forward to it? )

a reply to: JIMC5499

It's an IR missile sensor. There's one above each engine.

Looks like a special coated glass, for some type of optic, We use an infared camera to take heat signature pics at my work, and the optics lense looks like this. just a guess though

a reply to: JIMC5499

See following link

About five AN/ALQ-204 Matador infrared (IR) countermeasures devices are located at the tail and behind the four engines, Previously used on the VC-137C (Boeing 707-320B) presidential aircraft and on airliners and executive aircraft, the device emits pulsed IR signals to foil attacks by heat-seeking missiles.

www.defensemedianetwork.com...

theaviationist.com...

a reply to: tommyjo

I'm surprised they released that much about it. The first time I saw one, they were reluctant to tell us that it was anything to do with a countermeasures system, and only said it was a sensor for IR missiles. Of course that was way back when Reagan was President so I'm not surprised.

There is also another Boeing jet that the president flies on. Technically, ANY Air Force jet that carries the president is called air force one. "Air Force One" is just a call sign for the any plane carrying the president.

No matter where in the world the President travels, if he flies in an Air Force jet, the plane is called Air Force One. Technically, Air Force One is the call sign of any Air Force aircraft carrying the President. In practice, however, Air Force One is used to refer to one of two highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft, which carry the tail codes 28000 and 29000. The Air Force designation for the aircraft is VC-25A

www.whitehouse.gov...

"that'll be 20 billion dollars, thanks" -halliburton mudflap solutions

Israel is planning to place an IR sensor and laser package on it's commercial planes.

It's called C-Music (or Sky Shield):



I think the laser is fired from the glass housing underneath the sensors, deflecting or disabling the missile:



Source

The U.S. has a similar package called "Guardian" manufactured by Northrop Grumman.



Northrop says that if it was widely adopted, then economy of scale would kick in, and the price of a ticket would go up by about $1. I would pay that.

Source

Real time data streaming of commercial aircraft position and data would be nice too.

a reply to: ionwind

Guardian has been tested on USAF KC-135s. They install the mounting platform on the aircraft, and then the system itself is a bolt on package that you can remove from one aircraft and install on another in a matter of an hour or two.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
I was browsing the net and found a picture of Obama boarding AF1. There is nothing remarkable in that, but the item on the engine pylon is interesting. There is a small fairing right below the wing that has what looks like three flat lenses. I'm thinking that this is part of AF1's defensive counter measures against a heat seeking missile. If anybody knows anything about this that is NOT CLASSIFIED, I'd appreciate them sharing the information.

you can see it in this picture also

Air Force One

a reply to: ionwind

These systems have some limitations, in particular, they can disable only heat-seeking IR-tracking missiles, and probably only those of a fairly early generation. They can overload sensors or scramble a simple seeker's logic.

That wouldn't likely work against high-performance anti-aircraft missiles from any modern military. For instance the one which hit MH17 is radar-fuzed. And many could be guided from ground control, which could be a combination of radar (multiple sites), infrared and optical.

a reply to: mbkennel

That's why they have other systems for that. There's a very good ECM suite on board, as well as the usual decoys.