Several of today’s fighter aircraft such as F-16, F-18, Tornado, Harrier etc. were developed in the 1970’s timeframe. At that time the Electronic Warfare (EW) world was centered on Radio Frequency (RF) threats meaning that this generation of fighters typically was equipped with Radar Warning Receivers, Electronic Counter Measures/Jammers and Chaff/Flare Dispensers - which was a good suite at that time.

The Infra-Red (IR) threats were few and not very sophisticated so the IR self-protection was limited to the pilot visually (hopefully) seeing the hostile missile approaching his aircraft and then he could dispense flares and perform evasive maneuvering to decoy the homing missile.