The military application of aircraft to penetration missions, wherein a hostile territory is penetrated either for reconnaisance or weapon delivery purposes, exposes such aircraft to attack by hostile weapons such as radar-guided missiles. Such missiles may include angle-tracking radars the angle-tracking control signals of which are employed to steer the missile toward the penetrating vehicle, as described for example in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 566,970 filed July 21, 1966, and then issuing as U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,800 on July 20, 1971 by W. E. Stoney, assignor to North American Aviation, Inc., later known as North American Rockwell Corporation, and now known as Rockwell International assignee of the subject invention. Such missile system may also include doppler discrimination means for distinguishing a selected airborne target from ground clutter and even from other moving targets.
Various deception techniques have been developed in the prior art for use on individually operating aircraft, for denying target angle, or accurate direction, information to such missile systems. One such technique is described in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 703,234 filed Jan. 31, 1968, by R. L. Caswell, assignor to North American Rockwell Corporation assignee of the subject application. A Notice of Allowability issued on this application on 07/29/68 and a Rescinding Order was granted on 09/08/87. Such technique however is restricted to use at low altitudes. Other prior art techniques require considerable a priori knowledge of the missile system characteristics in order to be effective, and involve complex countermeasure equipment.