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Aviation History
1979
1979 - 4407.PDF
FLIGHT International, I December 1979 Aermacchi reputation grows from deep roots. Its achievements span through aviation history. Foresight and capability of adapting its own resources to specific tasks enabled Aermacchi to produce the right aeroplane at the right time: the MC.72 — unchallenged absolute speed record holder — the MC.202 - backbone of the Italian fighter force during WW II — and the MB-326 — tutor of thousands of pilots all over the world. Today, at the highest level of a challenging international competition, the basic/advanced trainer MB-339 reconfirms — together with other medium and long term programs — the role of Aeronautica Macchi in the aeronautical arena. 1843 The ground-control station is operated by a three-man team con sisting of the AV operator, mission payload operator and a mission com mander. Each crew member has a display and control console and there is an x-y co-ordinates plotter which gives a constant readout of the AV's position. Full video recording and playback facilities are standard. The air vehicle, which is launched from a pneumatic catapult, has a length of 6J2ft and a 13ft wihgspan. The airframe is made from Kevlar fibre. The complete vehicle weighs only 2201b at launch including the payload of 431b. The 24 h.p. engine gives a top speed in excess of 110 miles per hour, and endurance is a little more than three hours. Navigation is by a ground-based computer, which is pre-programmed with geographic waypoints before AV launch. These are transmitted to the AV autopilot as an intermittent up date. The AV, which flies from way- point to waypoint, can be taken over manually at any time and given new altitude speed and heading para meters, if needed. On completion of a manual override, the AV will auto matically continue to the next pro grammed waypoint. The RPV will em ploy a laser designator slaved to a gyro-stabilised gimballed TV camera. Real-time video is transmitted back to a ground-control station for obser vation by the mission payload opera tor who controls the pointing and field of view of the camera head. Tar get designation and laser illumination are controlled by the same operator using a light pen on his TV screen. The targets, after illumination, may be engaged by a variety of weapons, including the US Army's Copperhead laser-guided artillery shell. A further development is the Terminally Guided Sub-Munitions (TGSM) round which deploys a shower of bomblets which then home individually on to desig nated targets. An automatic tracking mode can also be selected. This keeps the stabilised sensor and laser gun on target regardless of the attitude of the RPV, allowing for high energy manoeuvring while over the target area. This auto-track mode is effective for both moving and stationary tar gets and is a valuable aid in identifi cation of suspect or camouflaged tar gets. Post mission recovery is entirely automatic, aided by an infra-red sen sor on the recovery net which acquires the vehicle and gives course corrections to the AV, via the ground- based computer and data-link. The net, which is an improved vertical ribbon type, has a rapid raise/lower device providing a low profile between recoveries. In the 3,000 operational missions flown in South-East Asia the low attrition rate of 4 per cent shows that RPVs are cost-effective in a high-risk situation, bearing in mind that these vehicles were adaptations of aerial targets and not specially designed for Test launch of MBB's harassment RPV. The vehicle is rocket boosted from its storage and transport container and is seen deploying to its unswept-wing flight configuration the missions on which they were em ployed. The Teledyne Ryan BGM-34B equipped with a designator and special pylons has already demon strated the ability to deliver Maverick on to ground targets. Future uses of specially designed vehicles may include such systems as the Tactical Expendable Drone Sys tem (Teds) which will be a very low- cost expendable vehicle. The Teds could be either actively or passively augmented to give a radar return similar to that of a strike aircraft. Launched in large numbers, they would saturate enemy air defences to ensure that enemy defences have to engage all radar returns. Some Teds would carry a small warhead and/or a radar emitter homing head. Teds has been confirmed by many studies as a highly cost-effective system which would saturate enemy air de fences and cause dilution of effort. A future possibility for remote pilots is the implementation of a colour video system to assist in target acquisition and recognition. The nar row field of view and monotone presentation of present TV and IR imaging equipment make recognition of small, low-contrast targets, viewed from low level and high subsonic speeds, difficult. Again the problem of jamming the down link arises. Colour would widen the down-link bandwidth as well as increasing sys tem cost. The alternative to improved remote imaging is to configure the vehicle for autonomous automatic acquisition with weapons aiming and release being on-board functions. Apart from a remotely piloted ver sion of the high flying YAK-25RD Mandrake and a few other aerial tar gets, the Warsaw Pact countries do not appear to have instigated a RPV programme. This is probably because they do not need RPVs, since they have large numbers of manned air craft and few problems procuring them. H
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