Arie Egozi: June 2011 Archives

Israeli unmanned air systems (UAS) manufacturers are evaluating the use of manned aircraft for UAS missions following the success of Aeronautics' unmanned air vehicle Dominator 2.

However, is this a new trend in the market or merely a provisional gap filler?

Major Israeli UAS manufacturers have said the reason they have not followed Aeronautics' path is because "a UAS has to be designed, as such, from scratch".

However, some UAS manufacturers have been evaluating whether it is right to invest in optionally piloted vehicles (OPVs) as an interim solution for the market.

OPVs may bridge the gap until large UAS models are allowed to fly in air traffic control areas.

"The conversion of existing manned platforms seems the easiest gap-filler," an industry source said on 29 June.

Israeli UAS makers refused to comment on future development plans. In the past, the two leading manufacturers - Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems - said a converted manned air platform would be of "limited capability because of its basic design features".

In spite of that the evaluation continues, probably to answer the requirements of limited budget customers and to overcome ATC limitations.

The production rate of Dominator 2 will soon increase as Aeronautics expects to sign new contracts after the XP version of Dominator 2 was cleared for export.

The Dominator XP was adapted to comply with Missile Technology Control Regime limitations.

The Dominator series is based on the Diamond DA42 twin-engine aircraft.

Dominator 2 has an endurance of 28h and is capable of carrying a 300kg (660lb) payload. Its maximum take-off weight is 2,000kg, maximum altitude is 30,000ft (9,150m) and maximum speed 190kts (350km/h).

The Dominator series is aimed at the high end of the UAS market and Aeronautics claims Dominator 2 is competing directly with UAS systems such as General Atomics' Predator and the IAI's Heron.

The investigation of the cause of the El Al 777 emergency landing in May enters its final phase.

Experts from the FAA, NTSB and Boeing, including metallurgic engineers, are expected this week at the MRO centre in Singapore that overhauled the landing gear that failed.

"We hope that after this phase of the investigation, we will be very near to a full picture of what has happened," a source close to the investigation said on 29 June.

Preliminary findings from the investigation of the emergency landing raised the possibility that the failure of one of the main landing gear was caused by the overhaul of the unit at an MRO centre in Singapore.

Yitzhak Raz, chief accident investigator of the Israeli ministry of transport, said earlier this month that the cause of the failure is probably work that was performed on the landing gear during the overhaul.

Raz said that the exact cause of the failure had not been detected and the investigation therefore continued.

Immediately after the emergency landing on 23 May, it became clear that a "severe structural failure" caused it.

The El Al 777 took off on a flight for Newark Liberty airport with 279 passengers on board, when there was an indication that the left main landing gear does not retract.

The captain decided to go back to Tel Aviv, and landed safely.

Air forces around the world have increasingly incorporated simulators during the past 20 years.

Machines range from desktop models to huge, moving versions housed in hangars. As a natural development, the number of simulators that help train unmanned air systems (UAS) operators started to grow five years ago. It is only the beginning.

If one assumes the Lockheed Martin F-35 will be the last manned combat aircraft to be manufactured, this will lead to a complete change in the simulator "scene" in air bases around the world.

Israel has developed and manufactured some of the most advanced UAS systems operational today and simulators help to train operators.

Simlat, a small Israeli company, identified the growing need for UAS simulators and in a few years has become a major developer and supplier.

Yuval Peshin, Simlat president, says the company is now active in 20 countries.

"In many cases we come into a market as subcontractors of the UAS manufacturer, but we also go there alone," he said.

Peshin said the platform allows every UAS operator to adapt the system to its specific operational needs.

"The UAS has become more expensive and so is the situation with the payloads they are carrying," Peshin said.

"The simulator decreases the risk of losing an operational system during training," he said, adding that was one reason for growing demand.

Simlat's simulators are designed to train all crew members of a UAS system, in most cases an external pilot, a system operator and a mission commander.

"The simulators allow the crews to train for a specific mission and for many types of scenarios, including those that are defined as homeland security," Peshin said.

Simlat has a co-operation agreement with General Dynamics' Information Systems and Technology Group to supply training for UAS operators in the US armed forces.

Recently, Simlat delivered a customised Israel Aerospace Industries Heron UAS payload operator training system to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

The simulator is designed to provide focused training for the payload operator and supports diverse training goals, from basic operation to mission rehearsal and intensive currency training.

According to Simlat, the system enables the customer to train its people in a realistic replica of the operational environment by providing high-end simulation of payload, sensors, platform and operational stations, and by adjusting mission scenario contents to suit the RAAF.

The training system is also equipped with a STANAG 4609 metadata output, allowing the RAAF to easily stream data into any standard-supporting device, such as imagery analysis systems.

It is one of those development programmes a defence company knows it has to undertake - especially in Israel - protecting helicopters from attack from the ground.

The engineers and technicians work on the project with the knowledge they are doing the right thing.

The problem is international. Helicopters are easy prey for the most simple weapon system such as a shoulder-launched rocket, developed some 30 years ago.

The low-intensity combat - a very bad term in many cases - has proved that guerrilla groups have understood that knocking a helicopter out of the sky is an impressive victory.

Israeli company Rafael developed the Trophy active protection system to save the lives of Merkava tank crews in Israel.

By using integral aircraft systems, Rafael plans to adapt its Trophy system for use on helicopters and transport aircraft.

The Trophy creates a hemispheric zone around the vehicle, where incoming threats are intercepted and defeated. When a threat is detected, identified and verified, the system launches the classified interceptor and it deflects and destabilises the rocket or shell so it does not hit its target.

While Israeli air force helicopters are using EW systems against missiles, there is a need to protect them against weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, which have downed many helicopters in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Converting the systems will involve downsizing and changing the way interceptors are launched to defeat the incoming threat.

Although Rafael has not confirmed it has an ongoing programme to adapt the Trophy to aerial applications, officials say the need for such a system on the aerial platform is clear.

Rafael has certainly identified the operational need and it intends to answer it with the building blocks developed for the system operating on the Merkava tanks.

Some of the best developments in space technology started in the laboratories of universities. In the perfect conditions for creative thinking, scientists come up with ideas that very often become technology breakthroughs.

The European Research Council (ERC) will support research at the Technion at Haifa in Israel, aimed at developing a method that will allow satellites to be launched in parts.

The ERC will provide €1.5 million ($2.1 million) for research by Prof Pini Gurfil of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Technion, who proposes launching satellites in parts, so that a complete satellite whose components communicate with each other wirelessly can be constructed.

"In unexpected situations, such as damage from space debris, a satellite might not react well and could discontinue its original task; functional and financial damages are thus unavoidable," explains Prof Gurfil.

"For example, if the payload is damaged, the entire system becomes unusable, and in order to complete the task the entire instrument must be replaced. This procedure is very expensive and time consuming. It is much easier to change a payload module than launch a new satellite."

This idea led to a new concept in space engineering, dubbed disaggregated spacecraft. In disaggregated space architectures (DSA), several separate modules communicate with each other via wireless communication links, thus forming a single virtual platform.

Each module has its own designated function or functions: navigation, attitude control, power generation and payload operation.

The independent modules are able to distribute resources among themselves and do not have to be very close to each other to operate. They only have to be in relative proximity, so that they form a cluster.

According to the Israeli scientist, DSA constitutes a new type of space engineering that is expected to be more efficient in terms of responsiveness, which is the ability to adapt to unexpected scenarios resulting from several sources of uncertainty at different levels of task design and execution.

The final goal of the proposed research is to develop innovative technology that will enable actual flight in a DSA formation.

Preliminary findings from the investigation into the emergency landing of an El Al Boeing 777 last month raise the possibility that the failure of one of the main landing gear was caused by the overhaul of the unit in an MRO centre in Singapore.

Yitzhak Raz, chief accident investigator at the Israeli ministry of transport, said that the cause of the failure is probably work that was performed on the landing gear during the overhaul.

Raz said that the exact cause of the failure has not been detected yet, and therefore the investigation continues.

He added that in spite of the fact that all signs point to a focused problem with the El Al 777 landing gear, other units will be checked around the world.

The investigation is now focused in the MRO centre in Singapore, and this in co-operation with experts from the US's NTSB and FAA.

Immediately after the emergency landing on May 23, it became clear that a "severe structural failure" caused it.

The El Al 777 took off on a flight for Newark Liberty airport with 279 passengers on board when there was an indication that the left main landing gear does not retract.

The captain decided to go back to Tel Aviv and landed after large numbers of fire engines and ambulances arrived to the airport.

Israeli air force F-16s escorted the 777 and their pilots tried to see if there were signs of damage to the stuck landing gear. The 777 landed safely.
 
El Al is very anxious to get the final findings of the investigation. The preliminary ones were a sort of relief to the Israeli airline that in 1992 lost a 747 freighter because a problem with a minor part that should not have failed in the specific condition of the fatal flight.

On October 4, 1992, an El Al 747 freighter crashed in Amsterdam, killing all four people on board and more than 50 people on the ground. The cause of the crash was the No 3 and No 4 engines that separated from the wing, causing loss of control.

The reason for the No 3 engine separation was a breakage of the fuse pin. The pin was designed to break when an engine seizes in flight, producing strong torque.

Both of the engines separated from the right wing, causing the Boeing 747-200 freighter to crash as it tried to go back to the airport.

This was not the first Boeing 747 to crash in this way. In December 1991, a China Airlines Boeing 747-200F freighter crashed shortly after take-off.

A possible reason for the shearing away of the two right engines is that corrosion and fatigue weakened the fuse pins that hold the strut to the wings.
 
In both the El Al crash and the China Airlines crash, the No 3 and No 4 engines on the right side of the plane ripped away from the fuselage.

It is believed that in the El Al crash the inboard fuse pin failed due to corrosion cracking and fatigue that caused the outboard fuse pin, already weakened by a crack, to fail.
 
Since the El Al 747 crash, Boeing has redesigned new parts for the pylon-to-wing attachment for the engines.

This is one dilemma that armed forces around the world have faced since modern warfare has been recorded and investigated.

This dilemma can be summed in one simple sentence: can air power achieve a continuous dominance of a defined territory?

Israel Aerospace Industries claims that with the right systems, the answer to that question is positive, and that it also offers the tools.

The current doctrine used by the Israel Defense Forces is that a ground force has to keep a continuous presence in the defined area, with the air force supporting from above when called in.

IAI offers a new doctrine and the tools to perform it . Colonel (Res) Ofer Haruvi , a senior consultant to IAI's military aircraft group, explains that the current doctrine costs a lot of lives: "The IDF evaluated the new proposed doctrine but went back to the old one. Now we offer it again but this time we offer the tools to perform it."

Haruvi explains that by using unmanned air systems, hovering intelligence platforms and stand-off sensors on aircraft, the air force can achieve the needed sustained dominance

"Some of these aerial systems should be operated by the infantry and become part of the sensors that create the big picture. But by doing so the ground force can stay in safe areas and move in only when the targets are well defined and precisely located."

Haruvi specifies some of the new systems developed by IAI to enable the IDF's proposed change of doctrine. One is the Panther tilt rotor UAS.

The Panther uses an innovative automatic flight control system that controls the transitions between the hovering take-off phase to forward flight and vice versa before landing.

The Panther takes off and lands automatically by a simple click of the operator console, thus eliminating the need for an external pilot.
 
According to IAI, the Panther is powered by three ultra-quiet electrical motors.
The Panther has a take-off weight of 65kg and an endurance of six hours. The Mini Panther is only 12kg when taking off and its endurance is two hours.

The second such tool is the IAI ETOP hovering aerial vehicle, a purely electrically powered, tethered, airborne platform that can be used for observation, surveillance and other applications.
 
The HAV can carry a payload of up to 20kg and operate up to a maximum altitude of 100m.

ETOP combines an electrically powered aerial platform and a ground system that includes the means for automatic deployment, cables, and a mission management unit.

The third tool that Haruvi mentions is the Ghost vertical take-off UAS that was partially unveiled recently. Haruvi also mentions the Harlim, a solar-powered UAS that takes off when the fighting starts and is in the air for its duration.

The senior consultant also mentions a Butterfly micro UAS with flapping wings, and the Mosquito super mini UAS that is under extensive development.

"We offer the change of doctrine when we have the right tools to perform it. We are sure that this will bring a serious discussion."

Small initiatives may lead to bigger ones. Israel is a "space power" but compared with Russia it is a very small one.

But the technologies developed in Israel, a country that entered the space business late compared with Russia, interest the giant.

This, in a way, led to Russian-Israeli co-operation on nanosatellites. An agreement signed in late May will lead to a first launch of a jointly developed nanosatellite in September 2012.

The agreement to establish a new entrepreneurial centre named RINI - Russian Israeli Nanosatellite Initiatives, was signed by the Tusur state university in Tomsk and two Israeli companies - Spacecialist and Astelion.

RINI plans to develop nanosatellites up to 10kg with the co-operation of the civilian space industries and academia in both countries.
 
Some Russian space industry companies have already expressed interest in the centre and intend to co-operate in RINI projects, including the joint Russian-Israeli launch in September 2012.
 
This co-operation is a small step, but Israeli sources say that the joint work of scientists from both countries will lead to more projects.

Israel develops and manufactures satellites and launchers.
 
"The fact that Israel joined the space business many years after Russia allows the different manufacturers to offer very advanced products based on the latest technology. This will, no question, create the basis for vast co-operation between the two space industries," said an Israeli source.

"The simpler the better" is a slogan used by an Israeli insurance company to promote its business, and it works. Now we will have a chance to see if it works in the unmanned air systems (UAS) market.

Themis was formed by UAS experts who served in the Israeli defence forces, and is already supplying services in different parts of the world.

The company has operated UAS in different parts of the world and is currently supplying training services for UAS operators.

In an effort to enhance its services, Themis developed a simple method to use a small UAS for civil mapping services.

According to Assaf Gilboa, the company's CEO, the service is based on a SkyLite-B mini UAS made by BlueBird. The company has attached a Canon SLR camera to the UAS, and with the right software it was tailored to perform the mapping services. "We proved that the still camera with the right software is doing the job. That allows us to take orthophotos of large areas. The camera takes a picture every three seconds and the output is perfect for agricultural uses, but not only."

Gilboa explained that the fact the small UAS can fly very low improves the images' resolution.

Themis has just completed a pilot for a potential customer. "We know that the demand will increase as we demonstrate this simple and very cost-effective system," the president of Themis said on 16 June.

The trend is very clear. By combining a mini UAS with off-the-shelf equipment like an SLR still camera, the services become more affordable and this, at the end of the day, is the key.

The state of Israel surrendered to an opposition led by pilots organisations that was against the Code Positive system designed to let its security authorities know when an aircraft heading towards Ben Gurion airport was controlled by terrorists.

The surrender raises a big question about the power of a country to implement measures that are not comfortable to some while they are raising the security level of many.

The highly classified Code Positive system was developed by Elbit Systems and was designed to allow the Israeli ATC to verify that an aircraft heading for Israel was not hostile.

The plan was to give special cards to all pilots that regularly fly to Israel. The smart cards are capable of verifying a pilot's identity. A special control centre was set up to receive the output of the system and to clear each aircraft.

Five airlines agreed to take part in the pilot - US Airways, Delta, Continental, Air Canada and Ethiopian.

The opposition to the use of the Code Positive system has been very wide. The European Commission, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA) voiced concerns.

These organisations claimed that the system might create discriminatory disadvantages and impediments to the development of air services to Israel, without providing a satisfactory increase in the level of security.

Sources in Israel said that the system will eventually be shelved.
The five airlines continued to use the Code Positive on some of their flights but recently stopped doing so after it became clear that the programme was actually scrapped and buried.

Views on the issue are split. Some say that the programme could not be implemented full scale. Others say that a country is sovereign to implement security measures of any kind.

The fact is that the government was not determined enough and therefore lost the battle. Only the future will show if that was a mistake.

Don't leave base without it. This sentence will be painted on the walls of any briefing room of a modern air force fighter squadron.

The need to handle the ocean of data derived from many sensors has created a line of systems aimed at handling this never-ending stream of data of all sorts.

Rafael is the natural "father" of such systems. The Israeli company has been developing some of the most advanced sensors for fighters and is selling them to the most advanced air forces, including that of the US.

The German air force has recently become the launch customer for the Rafael ImiLite, an intelligence system designed to receive, process and exploit multiple standalone imagery video and other intelligence data in a centralised and unified way.

The Germans have fielded the first system in Afghanistan to allow their Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron unmanned air systems (UAS) to shorten sensor-to-shooter time.

According to Rafael, the main system capabilities include the reception, processing and exploitation of EO, IR, SAR/GMTI and VIDEO, in various formats, over one desktop. This enables users to enhance the exploitation process.

ImiLite generates a variety of standard and customer-tailored ISR reports and IMINT products such as alphanumeric reports, annotated maps, GIS data layers and visual aids, and disseminates them to external information and operation systems over standard and tailored protocols.

The Israeli company says that ImiLite's multi-source data integration and automation capabilities improve the efficiency of utilising available collection and exploitation assets.

Is this the beginning of a new era in defence relations between China and Israel?

The visit this week of Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak to China has a meaning but it's very early to know exactly what it is.

The defence relations between the two countries were cut some years ago, after Israel angered the US through two incidents involving the sale of Israeli air systems to China.

The first was the sale of an Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Phalcon type airborne early warning (AEW) system to China. Washington foiled the deal after the aircraft was ready for delivery, and the Israeli government in 2002 agreed to pay $350 million to China as compensation for the scrapped contract.

The Phalcon AEW deal was followed in 2005 by a deal to upgrade the IAI Harpy attack drones that were sold to China many years ago. Washington was angered by the deal and put a heavy lid on the sale of additional military hardware to China.

The two incidents occurred against a background of media reports that the Chinese J-10 fighter "resembled" the IAI Lavi fighter that ended in the junkyard as a result of very heavy pressure from Washington. The Lavi programme was brought to an end in 1987.

Barak's visit this week is the first of its kind after a few years of complete detachment.

Israeli observers said that it is unlikely that Washington will take the leash off the Israeli defence industries' necks in relation to the Chinese market, but they added it could signal that a change is on the horizon.

It will take some time until we are able to see if something really has changed in the situation that hermetically sealed the Chinese defence market for the Israeli aerospace and defence industries.

In Israel, general aviation is the "adopted child" that gets the basic needs but not the love it deserves.

General aviation in Israel is based mainly at Herzelia airport.

Herzelia operates in limiting conditions as the municipality of Herzlia wants the airport out of its city boundaries.

The official claim is that the airport is a safety hazard as its runway is adjacent to some of Herzlia's most populated areas.

However, sources say another reason is the value of the area if freed for construction when the airport is moved to another location.

Real-estate prices in Herzlia are higher than in central Israel, where prices have also rocketed.

While the Israel Airports Authority tries to find an alternative location, conditions in Herzelia airport are causing deep concerns for the country's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Giora Romm , director general of the CAA, said maintenance infrastructure conditions in the airport are "below any standard".

Romm added that he had asked the Israeli Minister of Transport to help solve the problem.

The situation is worrying. The airport that is the centre for Israeli general aviation is a shame to a country with one of the most advanced aerospace industries in the world.

More than that, it has become a safety hazard.

As the threat grows, the effort to deal with it grows and so, too, does the means to test whether this effort is successful.

The threat is the full current and future range of rockets and ballistic missiles developed by countries such as Iran.

The threat will take a frightening twist when Iran has the capability to attach a nuclear warhead to one of its missiles.

Israel hopes to be prepared, while other countries prefer not to think about what may happen if the fanatical regime in Tehran decides it is the right moment to destroy its fictional enemies.

These enemies never posed any threat to Iran - a nation that regressed from a modern country to one that punishes couples who kiss in public.

While many countries in Iranian missile range think international sanctions will stop the regime in Tehran, Israel has developed a multi-layered shield.

This huge effort - only part of it has been revealed - has enabled Israeli defence industries to develop not only offensive and defensive means, but tools to test their efficiency.

The last of these to be revealed is Rafael's "Silver Sparrow",  an advanced target missile that will be used as part of the Arrow-3 interceptor programme - developed to defend Israel against long-range ballistic missiles.

The Silver Sparrow is Rafael's third-generation target missile. The first was the Black Sparrow, followed by the Blue Sparrow. The Silver Sparrow has been developed to allow the performance of intercept tests with the Arrow-3.

The first fly-out of the Arrow-3 will take place next year.

The Arrow-3, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, will intercept incoming ballistic missiles using kinetic kill, instead of proximity warhead detonation, as in the operational Arrow-2. This calls for a new advanced target.

Others are being developed to answer the growing threat. Super targets have become an integral part of defending a country from a multi-threat.

 

The Israeli airline EL AL is operating in "unconventional" conditions and is trying to balance these with new commercial initiatives.

The latest one is a plan to form a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operation in the fast-growing Chinese market.

Knafaim Holdings, which has the major stake in EL AL, is evaluating the establishment of an aircraft maintenance centre in China in co-operation with an unidentified Chinese partner.

Knafaim Holdings and the Chinese company have signed a letter of understanding (LOU). According to this, during the next six months the two sides will evaluate the possible options for establishing the joint company.

According to the LOU, the two sides will perform due diligence studies on each other.

EL AL has been trying for years to expand its maintenance services at its main base at Ben Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv.

The fact that the Bedek division of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has a big MRO centre at the same airport means that EL Al has had limited success in its efforts.

If the effort in China is successful, it may be some small compensation for the Israeli airline for operating only five-and-a-half days a week as a result of the pressure from religious parties, and for not being able to join one of the aviation alliances.

An attempt to form a "private" aviation alliance with some eastern European airlines has not been successful yet. The MRO centre in China is another attempt and others are planned.

The penetration of major Israeli aerospace companies into the huge Indian market is characterised by a variety of tactics that are all aimed at putting a heavy hand on larger chunks of the Indian defence procurement budgets.

 

Late last week, the production facility of NOVA Integrated Systems, a TATA enterprise, began the production of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Electro-Optic Stabilised POP 200 payload.

 

The NOVA production facility for electro-optic systems is the first of its kind in the Indian private sector and has been set up by NOVA to offer and cater to indigenous design development, manufacture, maintenance and after-sales support capabilities to the Indian defence and paramilitary forces.

 

NOVA is also in the process of setting up its main facility in the Adibatla area. This is part of the TATA Group's plans to establish an aerospace manufacturing hub in the Hyderabad area. It will cater for the production of UAVs, radars and missile systems.

 

IAI has identified the bureaucratic difficulties of forming joint companies in India with local parties and is taking a side route - the transfer of know-how to the Indians in return for huge contracts.

 

This has already paid off and the signs are it will continue to bring good results.

 

I'm not making a wild guess when I say I believe that this form of transferring know-how by Israeli aerospace companies to their Indian counterparts will become a very routine way of putting the big hand where the money is.

Lasers played major roles in science fiction movies many years ago. The "death rays" killed the enemy and destroyed assets.

For many years scientists, mainly in the US, have been trying to turn this fiction into reality by building operational weapons systems that will use laser beams instead of projectiles.

These attempts have not yet been translated into operational systems.

Israel is using laser beams with great success, not as a weapon but as a weapon "guide".

This success stems directly from the fact that a laser beam is coherent, precise and steady. With these virtues it can be used to illuminate targets from great distances.

Recently, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has unveiled an operational concept that is based on the simultaneous use of many laser designators.

The MBT weapon division of IAI is manufacturing laser-directed weapons systems, some of which are highly classified.

The division's people say that there is a continuous, very fast increase in the use of laser-guided weapons by air forces.

Not everything has been revealed by IAI, but from the details we were given it can be said that the concept is based on the sophisticated networking of a great number of laser designators.

This is not enough and can even cause confusion. So the MBT people have developed a command and control system that enables the different designators to "talk" with each other in a plain "language".

Each of the laser beams is coded, enabling the allocation of a weapons system to each designator, or some to many.

The MBT division not only developed the networked designators system, but offers a variety of laser-guided weapons systems to go with it.

Here again, what is presented is just the tip of a variety of such weapons systems, but most are classified.

The MBT Nimrod 3 is one of the laser-guided weapons systems. This missile has a range of 50km and, according to IAI, a circular error of probability (CEP) of 1m.

A second example is the Griffin 3, a bomb carried by fighter planes. The bomb is brought to the target area by GPS navigation but the laser spot ensures a very accurate hit.

IAI says that the Griffin has a CEP of 5m but confirms that it is producing more advanced weapons of this type, dubbed generally as Next Generation Laser Guided Bomb kits.

These weapons provide air forces with high-precision, 12km stand-off strike capability against ground targets such as bunkers, entrenched tanks, armoured vehicles and other hardened targets.

This capability allows attacks on highly defended targets while eliminating aircraft and aircrew losses, and ensures cost-effective operations, killing more targets with less ammunition.

The conversion kits are compatible with the Mk-82/83/84 GP and other bombs. The kit comprises a front guidance section and a rear fins section, which are attached to a standard bomb, converting it to a "smart" one.

MBT's smart bombs are combat proven. They can be carried by many types of fighter aircraft, and used with all available designators.

Lasers are light, but what is done with them in development laboratories at IAI is in many cases protected from the light, or rather from the eyes of those who are not directly involved.

In spite of this fact, I can say without any doubt - laser designators networking is a great step ahead, if not a giant step.

How to prevent the use of air cargo for the performance of terror acts? This is an issue that is the focus of the Israeli general security service.

The problem has been intensified by an increase in the number of courier packages flown by dedicated or passenger airlines all over the world and to Israel at a very fast-growing pace.

After the attempt made last year to send explosives in packages originating in Yemen, Israeli experts visited some "sensitive airports" and supervised the security measures that are applicable to small packages.

These checks resulted in some additional classified measures that are mandatory on certain routes that end at Ben-Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv.

All freight leaving and arriving at Ben-Gurion airport is checked by special security systems, while some is put through pressure chambers that simulate flight conditions in case a barometric detonation fuse is used.

"This is a never-ending chase after terror minds and techniques and we have to be at least one step ahead," said an Israeli security expert.

The money spent by Israeli organisations to create the safety net that will prevent using air cargo for deadly terror acts is big. There are no signs that these budgets will get smaller in the foreseeable future.