You pilots should really know better.
IT'S NOT CHAFF !!!

Chaff, also called "window" by silly foreigners, is NOT the same thing as FLARE.

Chaff is an RADAR countermeasure.
Flare is a heat-seek (IR) countermeasure.

Yeah, it isn't chaff. Chaff is usually small rectangles of an aluminum foil type stuff which reflects the radar and scatters the radar signal of the plane being locked on to. These are flares, used against heat seeking missiles...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1156275704.jpg

Flares are meant to distract heats seeking and IR missiles with a very bright heat signature...hopefully brighter than my aircrafts!

Chaff is meant to confuse radar guided missiles with small metalic particules (in different lenghts to confuse different type of missiles).

The key is that we usually "pop" a series of chaff and flares when a missile is detected...best not to guess.

I flew with a guy who had a completely different policy. On our first flight, he pointed to the missile warning system and says, "If you EVER see that mutha&%^&er light up, I'll be waiting for you on the ground."

The jet guys I've flown with have a saying: "You don't have to be faster than the missile, just faster than your wingman...";)

Funny story:

A friend of mine was deployed to Baghdad about 6 months ago. Part of her job involved flying around the country in Blackhawks to do clinic and hospital inspections. Anyhow, on her first ride they are flying over Baghdad and she sees flares start popping off. She about craps her pants, sure they are getting shot at but the crew doesn't seem concerned. Not wanting to seem like a wuss, she keeps her mouth shut. After they land, she asks one of the crew why the flares were popping off. He said it is an automated system but it often gets triggered by automatic garage doors, automatic sliding doors, etc.

so what your saying is the missile warning system lights up and you have to" manually light" off chaffe and flares??????

its not automatically activated once missile is detected?????
it seemed from bagdad final approach pictures there was no threat but they did it anyway to discourage shoulder fired weapons.

Depends on the system...and the mission and the time of day. The systems I have flown allow different settings that either trigger chaff and flares automtically or allow pilot interface prior to deployment of countermeasures.

The last thing you want at night on certain mission profiles (or subsets of) is a stray tron giving the bad guys a "flamming datum".

Sometimes on very humid days, just before a high wing loading aircraft; such as an airliner, lands you can see the vortices off the wing tips and back edges of the flaps make little condensation trails that look like that. Some fighters do it too in High-G manuevers.

Flares...Chaff. Oops. Sorry.

(I never flew in the military so I know nothing about countermeasures)

I think on our bird, we were just supposed to start flicking a bunch of "strike anywhere" matches out the window if the warning light came on.