Daniel P. Grenier said. The ECM system on the aircraft now can sort threats by priority and react against them automatically. The system also knows when it is dangerous to use ECM, he said. The philosophy of deception and camouflage is to ensure that the aircraft is never spotted, so that it does not have to overpower defenses, Grenier said. Gallentine said his confidence in the ECM has doubled, and in his experience it invariably has forced pursuit aircraft to abandon their radar missiles and switch to infrared missiles or guns.
Flares can lure the heat-seeking missiles away from the bomber.
Moreover, with friendly fighter support to keep the defenders busy, the B-1 becomes even harder to attack, Gernier said. With the bomber flying four or five miles ahead of the escort, any defender turning behind the B-1 would itself become a target, he said. They are vulnerable only at high altitudes where they sometimes fly to conserve fuel en route to distant targets, a squardron pilot said. Other than this one visual sighting, the bombers got through U.S. defenses, he said. The enemy gets one pass and then the B-1 is gone, Priecko said.