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Raytheon Company launched two Miniature Air Launched Decoy instrumented shapes from the ramp of a C-130 Hercules equipped with the new Raytheon-funded MALD Cargo Air Launched System (MCALS). This test marked the first deployment of a MALD airframe from a cargo aircraft. ”Dispensing the MALD family of weapons from cargo aircraft gives warfighters an important new capability they currently don’t have in today’s high-threat environment,” explains Harry Schulte, vice president of Raytheon Missile Systems’ Air Warfare Systems product line. “MCALS opens the door for the non-traditional use of a high-capacity aircraft to deliver hundreds of MALDs during a single combat sortie.”

MALD is a state-of-the-art, low-cost flight vehicle that is modular, air-launched and programmable. It weighs less than 300 pounds and has a range of approximately 500 nautical miles (about 575 statute miles). The current MALD family includes both the baseline MALD and a stand-in jammer variant called the MALD-J.

The MALD-J protects aircrew and airborne systems by reducing or eliminating the need for manned stand-in jamming aircraft.

The original MALD began as a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency experiment, aimed at producing a relatively cheap flying robot, able to mimic the flight characteristics of American warplanes. The idea was for MALD decoys, launched by F-16s, F/A-18s or B-52s, to fly ahead of the bombers during an air campaign. The enemy would turn on all its radars and waste its Surface-to-Air Missiles on the decoys. Meanwhile, the Navy’s Prowler and Growler jets would jam or destroy the radars busily tracking the MALDs.

Now, with the airlifter mass-deployment system, the Air Force could put so many MALDs into the air, so fast, that any real warplanes would be safely hidden against any surviving air defenses able to see through the MALD-generated jamming. It’s a high-tech version of the swarm tactics that pirates and poor countries have devised to overpower U.S. forces’ own defenses.

And as if that weren’t enough, Raytheon is also offering to put sensors or warheads inside future MALD versions, adding “eyes” and explosive potential to the swarm.