AMC Test and Evaluation part of team leading effort in KC-135 LAIRCM possibilities

Mr. James Shilling, Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures, or LAIRCM, system manager for Northrop-Grumman in Chicago, Mr. Raymond Berhalter, program manager at the KC-135 System Program Office at Tinker AFB, Okla., and Lt. Col. Randall Sealy, tanker test manager and chief of Headquarters Air Mobility Command’s Aircraft Test Management Branch -- part of AMC’s Test and Evaluation Division, look at a LAIRCM pod attached to a KC-135 Stratotanker parked on the flightline March 1, 2011, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. In a combined effort between Air Mobility Command, the Air National Guard, the KC-135 Program Office, Northrop-Grumman and other agencies, a KC-135 LAIRCM pod defensive system is becoming a reality. The pod, called the Guardian System by maker Northrop-Grumman, is a laser-based countermeasures system designed to detect, provide warning of, and employ countermeasures against infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Master Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol)