On the occasion of the Electronic Warfare Europe 2018 conference, underway until the June 7 in Lausanne, Leonardo presented a new variant of the BriteCloud, the family of electronic countermeasures for the protection of aircraft. This is the BriteCloud 55-T, which will be able to protect military transport aircraft, such as Leonardo's C27-J, C-130 and A400M, from modern radar-guided missiles. The new version will be added to the existing ones: the 55 BriteCloud for combat aircraft, such as the Tornado, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen that use 55 mm dispensers, and the BriteCloud 218, for hunting equipped with square flare launchers, such as the F-15 and the F-16. BriteCloud 55-T is currently in the final development phase and may already be ordered, with deliveries starting from the beginning of 2019.
Characterized by very small dimensions, the BriteCloud 55 is designed to protect combat aircraft thanks to a miniature radio frequency noise module able to trick radar-guided missiles, causing them to miss the designated target. The countermeasure proved to be effective in the test campaigns carried out with the Royal Air Force and is now in service aboard the Tornado GR4 fleet of the British Air Force. Leonardo then further miniaturized the technology
creating the BriteCloud 218 version for those fighters that, like the F-16, use 2 "x1" x8 "dispensers. The BriteCloud 55-T responds to the protection needs of military transport aircraft, which need a more powerful countermeasure to cover the greater radar echo produced by these large aircraft and to divert the most sophisticated radar-guided threats. Of the same size as the BriteCloud 55, the new variant can be used with standard chaff and flare dispensers from 55mm or with a square-shaped device using an adapter, without the need for additional integration activities.
BriteCloud is a family of innovative products, which today sees Leonardo as the only supplier in the world of this type of technology in the field of electronic countermeasures DFRM (Digital Radio Frequency Memory). Designed and manufactured at the Luton plant in the United Kingdom, and already in service at the British Royal Air Force, the system has received expressions of interest from numerous Air Forces worldwide, in the 55 and 218 variants. As a launch partner, Saab, manufacturer of the Gripen aircraft, offers BriteCloud as an electronic protection system compatible with all of its aircraft models, including the Gripen E.
