Spanish Aircraft to Get New Platform Protection Suite

Indra has signed a deal worth €35million ($40million) to fit the Spanish Army’s Chinook fleet with a new-generation platform-protection package.

The system comprises the ALR-400FD radar alerter, the InWarner missile and laser alerter, the company’s InShield directed infra-red countermeasures (DIRCM) system, and all necessary interconnections and interfaces. The ALR-400FD and InShield were both ordered in 2020 for the NH-90 helicopter; a 2017 order saw InShield fielded on the A400M transport aircraft. InWarner is a new product.

The ALR-400FD can monitor the whole radar spectrum, rather than using partial band scanning, as has been common in previous generations of warner. This means the system offers better protection against adversaries using frequency-hopping techniques. As well as being able to detect missiles, InWarner alerts aircrews to a laser designator acquiring the helicopter as a target. InShield directs a laser beam onto the missile’s thermal guidance system in order to deflect it.

As a suite, the new system is exportable, and can be fitted not just to other Chinooks but, the company says, to all types of fixed- and rotary-wing platforms.