detection of a missile launch, various countermeasure systems are activated. In one example, hot flares or chaff are released from the aircraft to confuse the infrared or radar system of the launched missile. Other approaches broadcast light energy to confuse the missile infrared sensors. In one example, light energy emitted by non-coherent flashlamps is directed toward the missile sensors, to confuse them and render them ineffective ("jamming"). IR missiles are vulnerable to high-powered IR carrier signals which blind the IR detector of the incoming IR missile. In addition, IR missiles are vulnerable to lower-powered IR carrier signals that are modulated using certain modulating signals that confuse its tracking system and cause the tracking system to track a false target. Conventional countermeasures to an IR missile threat include jamming systems which confuse or blind the IR missile using either IR lamps and/or IR lasers. These jamming systems transmit either a high-powered IR carrier signal to blind the IR detector of the incoming IR missile or transmit a lower-powered IR carrier signal modulated with a modulating signal to confuse the IR detector of the incoming missile. As infrared missiles are increasingly cheap and simple, they have been increasingly dangerous. By one estimate more than 500,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles exist and are available on the worldwide market. The lethality and proliferation of IR surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) was demonstrated during the Desert Storm conflict, as approximately 80% of US fixed-wing aircraft losses in Desert Storm were from ground-based, Iraqi defensive systems using IR SAMS. Both IR SAMS and IR air-to-air missiles have seekers with improved Counter-Countermeasures (CCM) capabilities that seriously degrade the effectiveness of current expendable decoys. Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) are the most serious threat to large, predictable, and slow flying air mobility aircraft. These systems are lethal, affordable, easy to use, and difficult to track and counter. According to a 1997 CIA Report, MANPADS have proliferated worldwide, accounting for over 400 casualties in 27 incidents involving civil aircraft over the previous 19 years. This proliferation has forced air mobility planners to frequently select less than optimal mission routes due to lack of defensive systems on airlift aircraft. Infrared missile seeker technology Infrared missile seekers of the first generation typically used a spinning reticle with a pattern on it that modulates infrared energy before it falls on a detector (A mode of operation called Spin scan). The patterns used differ from