New Product by Leonardo will Protect Military Transport Aircraft

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Leonardo has recently unveiled the latest variant in its market-leading ‘BriteCloud’ missile decoy family, the BriteCloud 55-T. The new 55-T is able to protect large military transport aircraft such as the company’s C27-J and third-party platforms including the C-130, KC-390 and A400M from modern, radar-guided missiles.

The original BriteCloud 55’ countermeasure is designed to protect fighter aircraft and uses a miniaturised Radio-Frequency (RF) jamming module to trick incoming radar-guided missiles into missing their intended target. BriteCloud 55 has been proven effective in extensive testing carried out with the UK Royal Air Force and is now in-service with the RAF on-board its fleet of Tornado GR4 aircraft.

Leonardo has since miniaturised the technology further to create the BriteCloud 218 product for fighter jets using 2x1x8 dispensers, such as the F-16.

Larger aircraft require a more powerful decoy in order to mask the larger radar return that they produce. BriteCloud 55-T has been developed to address this by generating a much more powerful ‘ghost’ radar signature, drawing even advanced radar-guided threats away from the transport aircraft. The same size as BriteCloud 55, the 55-T variant will be able to fit into an aircraft’s standard 55mm chaff and flare dispenser, or fitted to a square format dispenser using an adapter magazine, with no further integration work required, according to the company website.

BriteCloud is a breakthrough technology, with Leonardo currently the only provider of DRFM expendable active decoy technology worldwide.