Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: IR warning
Message-ID: <1991Jan27.111516.28781@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 27 Jan 91 11:15:16 GMT
References: <1991Jan25.032206.11434@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 29
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: dnwiebe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan N Wiebe)
>... One of the features of
>both of these simulators is a pair of EWRs (one for radar, one for IR)
>each with three warning lights--search, targeting, and guidance...
>... how does the IR thingy work?  I was under the
>impression that IR homing devices are passive, rather than active.

Correct.  I think somebody's gotten carried away.

>How do you tell when IR energy from your aircraft is being absorbed
>by a missile's seeker head, rather than by the ground or air?  Beyond
>that, how do you tell what it's being used for once it's absorbed...

You don't.

>... he says that these IR warning
>devices really do exist...

*Probably* what he is thinking of is a slightly different story.  There
are gadgets that will warn of a missile launch by picking up the IR
emissions of the missile exhaust.  They don't tell you whether it's pointed
at you, or what form of guidance it uses, but a missile fired in your
vicinity is cause for concern regardless of details.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry