While I seem to recall seeing a photo of a B1 bomber with a towed decoy system deployed, I cannot seem to turn up a copy. The artist's renditions are
plentiful, as are photos of towed decoys on static display. I even found a photo of a decoy in the air, but it was cropped to exclude the aircraft
pulling it. Does anyone have something like that stashed on their hard drive that they would be willing to share?
This comes up because a friend of mine saw some Iraq video footage back in December on MSNBC that showed an aircraft (he thinks an F-111) trailing
some sort of device on a long, thin line. I missed this and we have not been able to catch it again anywhere. I have read that this system has been
operational on U.S. aircraft like the F-16, F/A-18 and B-1B aircraft since the late 1990's, so it seems not unlikely that someone has snapped a
picture of it in action. The British have a similar system so it may well have been an RAF plane.
Info on subject:
AN/ALE-50 towed decoy system - Raytheon
Advanced Airborne Expendable Decoy - FAS
Sanders IDECM System
ALE-55 article with photo