CIOInsider India Magazine

Without a doubt, fighter jets or any aircraft involved in combat are most reliable in taking out aerial enemies with drones also joining in on the job. They counter many hurdles, with radar, infrared, or radio frequencies being the most unavoidable threats and weapons based out on these frequencies are a double threat. No matter how powerful modern military aircraft fly, but find it hard to combat anti-aircraft missiles flying much faster than aerial warriors. Even worse are the heats seeking missiles which are based on radar and infrared frequencies are much difficult to take down. While it's proven true that such frequencies are responsible for nearing wiping the sparrows in India, these rays are stretching further causing immense hindrance to fighter jets. If not for its positive use cases and detection abilities which is the same reason why fighter jets have it rough with these fellows in the air, radar frequencies pose threats to the pilot flying the aircraft. Those threats are infamous cancer and other health complications radars and other frequencies are known for. These diseases do not discriminate but simply infiltrate, unlike mankind who is not exactly kind.

Since mankind fights his kind by shooting weapons induced with these frequencies at fighter jets that are from India. But that story is now edited and Indian fighter jets combating such tricks will be a thing of the past thanks to India’s largest and most diverse research organization called the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). DRDO was specifically created for such purposes and it’s been in service for years that it’s a seasoned genius in catering to defense requirements of any kind. To combat the current issue, it has developed an advanced chaff technology to shield Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jets against hostile radar threats. The technology is said to station three variants namely Short Range Chaff Rocket (SRCR), Medium-Range Chaff Rocket (MRCR), and Long Range Chaff Rocket and before the technology could be passed on to fighter jets, DRDO tested the three variants in the Arabian Sea on Indian Naval ships which came out with positive results.

However, this technology has long been known to have been serving defense bodies worldwide, as nations regarded it as a useful tool in safeguarding assets from naval vessels and aircraft from radar and radiofrequency. No sooner than those results were given the green signal, the air force etched out its process of induction of this technology.

Rumors have it that this technology could be a replica or influenced by a similar technology seen used in naval ships to protect them from missiles.

Chaff Technology Does a Silent Kill to Radar and Infrared Frequencies
DRDO invented the technology at its Jodhpur laboratory in Rajasthan blending high energy materials from Pune’s research laboratory, to meet qualitative requirements of the IAF.

This technology is seated at an aircraft’s CounterMeasure Dispensing System (CMDS) using the silent treatment against radar and infrared frequencies. Meaning the technology passively jams these frequencies.

But don’t flares do the same job? Well, not quite but the key difference between flares and the chaff technology is simple. It does fall true that both chaff and flares are known to fight with passive expendable countermeasures (ECMs) that deceive hostile missiles through their confusion reflectors by either chemical or mechanical means. Another factor that pops up when talking about ECMs is that there’s an additional way, probably the noisy way that transmits electromagnetic energy. However, the flares draw the line by deflecting incoming heat-seeking missiles by generating a diversion with a larger heat signature that draws the missile away from the target, whereas chaff is designed to deflect radar-enabled weaponry. The reason for this is that chaff is made up of a lot of tiny aluminum or zinc-coated strands.
It will be stored as cartridges onboard the airplane.

Since militaries across nations are no strangers to using chaff technology in naval ships mostly, this technology is molded into rockets that act as multiple targets for missile systems. This may seem to call for the increasing use of this technology, but that’s not the case here. As only a small amount of chaff material deployed in the air is required to act as a decoy to distract enemy missiles for the protection of the ships.

Chaff, according to the DRDO, is an electronic counterpart of smoke that uses electromagnetic waves to confuse or deceive an enemy system. Chaff is formed of thin metallic glass or plastic rods, thin metal foil or wire, or chopped hay and straw used for feed, and is designed to replicate the wavelength of the frequency utilized by enemy radar. They come in the shape of cartridges filled with vast quantities of the chaff of various sizes.

How this works is that chaff pops up on the enemy’s radar screens either as a blot hiding the real target or multiple targets around the real one. All done with just using a pinch of the technology. More intel is spilled by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), saying that the chaff bundles break open to generate a radar-reflective cloud called a chaff corridor when injected into the aircraft slipstream. The dumping of chaff confuses radars to the point where they are unable to point the true targets within the chaff cloud.

Can Chaff Storm Rain Out of a Clear Sky?
Well, not quite the rain that the common man is familiar with, and it's not acid rain as well. Chaff could deceive the human eye into thinking that there’s actually rain, but looking at the clear blue skies what seems like droplets of rain are soon released as the reigning down of military weapons. It’s the idea of the military to make what looked to be an ominous rain cloud on the weather radar was actually a military aircraft hiding operations and confusing the adversary. The idea of it is to simply use it as a cover to hide what the military has been plotting.

Around the period of World War II, the German, British, American, and Japanese forces developed their own radar countermeasures. For self-defense, most military aircraft and warships still have chaff dispersion systems. Chaff was made up of aluminum fibers finer than human hair, tightly wrapped together and dispersed by the wind when released.

While chaff is intended to mislead the enemy, it can also temporarily deceive meteorologists since it appears red on weather radars (the same color as heavy, rain-producing storm clouds).