Finmeccanica – Selex ES and Saab are delighted to announce that BriteCloud flight trials will be held in September 2014. The trials will involve BriteCloud decoys being released from a Saab Gripen aircraft.

The BriteCloud Expendable Active Decoy (EAD) is a small active DRFM countermeasure that has the capability to defeat the majority of modern and legacy Surface-to-Air and Air-to-Air threat systems. BriteCloud is designed to be dispensed from standard chaff & flare dispensers and therefore requires minimal platform integration. The decoy provides the ECM techniques and rapid response times usually associated with deployed Fibre Optic TRDs whilst achieving greater miss distances.

Saab is the first to offer BriteCloud as an EW enhancement option on all Gripen aircraft, both new and existing.

Finmeccanica – Selex ES has commenced manufacture of the production-standard 55mm format BriteCloud with the first batch available for delivery in late 2014. Work has also begun on the development of the 218 format BriteCloud with production and qualification due to commence in 2015.

The Gripen trial builds on the strong relationship Finmeccanica – Selex ES has with Saab and the decision to offer BriteCloud into the portfolio of enhancements increases the capability Finmeccanica – Selex ES provides to Gripen users. Finmeccanica – Selex ES already provides the Raven ES-05 AESA radar, Skyward-G IRST and next generation IFF for the Gripen NG.