How do you lose that?

[+Gr.Viper]

10,000 Qaddafi's Strela-2 MANPADs gone missing.

(in German) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,789556,00.html

5,000 if you're optimistic.

(in German, too) http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/libyen-uebergangsrat-vermisst-5000-raketen-1734369.html

 

Now somebody has a way to enforce a "no fly zone" of their own if they feel like it.

[+JonathanRL]

I will give it less then a month until countermeasures become suggested refit for civvie airliners.

 

Still, considering the ammount of MANPADS in BF3, they might just have been zappad into a computer game ;-)

Edited October 2, 2011 by JonathanRL

[firehawkordy]

The problem with a "suggested" anything to the airlines is that it won't be implemented until a Jumbo Jet gets shot down or has a near miss, then all of a sudden it will "become" a big "concern" to the carriers. It seems that in the US at least any safety suggestion is first paid for by the blood of the passengers. Oh and speed of implementation is based on size of the plane and total passengers killed.

[+FastCargo]

This is not a new problem. IRCM for airliners have already been extensively tested. And airliners have already been shot at with MANPADs with very mixed results...mostly misses/non fatal results with no attacks in the western hemisphere.

 

This article has some numbers:

 

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/manpads

 

Note that though the potential economic damage of a successful MANPAD airliner attack is $16 billion USD, the cost to equip airliners with dedicated IRCM could be as much as $11 billion, with $2 billion per year to operate. In other words, you only get 2 years where it's cheaper to have IRCM. After that, it actually costs less to lose an airliner to a MANPAD.

 

And before all you guys get up in arms about lives being priceless...no such thing. You don't drive in a car with a full steel roll cage, HANS equipment, 5 point harness and a nomex firesuit / helmet do ya? And you could add all that yourself, but you don't because it would cost a bunch of money and be a PITA to wear. In other words, you trade off the risk you could die in a car accident verses the money you save not having all that stuff because it probably won't happen to you today.

 

FC