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precision. In many cases, they can employ certain types of ordnance without having
to fly over a heavily defended tgt.
Using the
two-pod Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for
Night
(LANTIRN) system, a two-man F-15E crew can take off from a blacked-out
airfield and fly a moonless night atk msn only 100 feet above rough terrain, traveling
at airspeeds greater than 500 knots. The IR picture, which the plt sees through the
head-up display (HUD) in his windscreen, "reads" heat emissions to show him the
terrain ahead, which shows up almost as bright as in daylight.
The
terrain-following equip
enables the plt to stay below en rdr acquisition
horizons. Once in the atk area, the aircrew can "see" the tgt, using ground-mapping
rdr or IR return data displayed on one or more of their cockpit multifunction displays
(MFDs), and atk it before the defenders know they are threatened.
Staying beneath en rdr, the plt uses gnd clutter to fool any searching acft that
might be equipped with
look-down/ shoot-down rdr systems
.
The
glass cockpit
is one more crucial innovation. Several cathode-ray tubes
replace most of old round "steam gauge" dials familiar to generations of plts. These
screens display all the info the plt needs to fly the plane and use it as a fighting machine.
Whatever info the plt needs at any moment can be projected onto his HUD, so it appears
to be floating out in space, where his eyes focused in his search for en planes.
Coupled with the programmable rdr and the glass cockpit is the
hands on
throttle and stick
, or HOTAS, system. With all the critical con switches on the stick
or throttle, the plt never has to let go of the controls to fly or fight.
Once the plt drops his bombs, he immediately switches his rdr and all his wpn
systems from air-to-gnd to air-to-air with a slight movement of the thumb of his right
hand where it rests on the con stick to prepare to deal with en ftrs. In the past, if he
could do it at all, it took the plt many seconds to reconfigure the plane as a ftr and in a
dogfight he had to estimate the distance to his tgt and then use his gunsight to
calculate how far in front of the other plane to aim so the bullets would arrive at the
right moment. At present the plane's rdr measures the distance to the other plane and
the computers do all the calculations with much more precision than the plt could do
them in his own mind.
When the rdr is locked on to the en plane and it is within range of the gun or
one of the msls, a strobe light on the HUD flashes "SHOOT ... SHOOT ... SHOOT".
If the plt presses the trigger on the stick, a hit is almost certain.
So the term "
aircraft armament system
" covers a wide variety of equip and
comps designed to carry, arm, release, and maintain overall control of the various
explosive items of ordnance which are frequently referred to as "stores" for brevity.
According to the stores used and the method of their employment the aircraft
armament may be classified as guns, bombs, rkts and GM's, mines, torpedoes and
depth charges, and special purpose wpn systems.
