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Aviation History
1981
1981 - 0956.PDF
982 FLIGHT International, 4 April 1981 SCIENCE/SCOFE The F-15, the most capable air force fighter in the world, will be improved with an advanced long-range AN/APG-63 radar with SAR (synthetic array radar) modifi cations. With SAR the F-15 Strike Eagle becomes an even more capable weapons system which can fly attack missions against ground targets in all weather, such as the notoriously inclement weather of Europe. Using SAR to analyze radar sig nals reflected from the ground — at distances of over a hundred kilometers — the system can display extremely high resolution images, discerning objects and features down to 10 feet in size. Hughes supplies the APG-63 radar to McDonnell Douglas Corp., builder of the F-15. NASA's Pioneer Venus Orbiter continues to gather information after more than two years above the cloud-shrouded planet. Since arriving in December 1978, the spacecraft has relayed more than 40 million bits of data to Earth and transmit ted nearly 1000 ultraviolet pictures of the planet's clouds. The radar mapper on board the Orbiter has mapped 93 percent of the surface to show a terrain of mountains, high plateaus, and great plains. The Hughes-built craft is now being allowed to drift from its orbit to look at Venus from new vantage points. Two versions of F-5 aircraft now have a laser system to help deliver weapons with pinpoint precision. The system is called the Laser Target Designator Set (LTDS). A crewman sights a target through an optical telescope and fires the laser designator. The beam passes through the aircraft canopy to the target and is reflected like a beacon. Laser-homing weapons guide themselves to the tar get by homing on this spot. Hughes delivered the final designators ahead of schedule to prime contractor Northrop Corp. The LTDS is being installed in F-5B and F-5F aircraft for foreign military sales. A multimission helicopter has been assigned a new role — that of a tank fighter — by using a lightweight roof-sight version of the airborne TOW missile system. The Bell TexasRanger was developed for foreign military sales without U.S. government participation. The TOW missile system for the TexasRanger is the only such system that can be completely removed and reinstalled in the field without a requirement for re-boresighting. Already the helicopter has completed an extremely successful missile firing program in the Mojave Desert. The air borne TOW missile system, including the roof-mounted sight, is being produced in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace under license from Hughes. For the first time a weapon delivery system will let pilots of single-seat air craft find, track, and destroy surface targets day or night while flying at high speed and low altitudes. The system is called LANT1RN (Low Altitude Navigation Targeting Infrared for Night). It would be mounted in a pod outside U.S. Air Force F-16 and A-10 aircraft. LANTIRN includes a forward-looking infrared sen sor and a terrain-following navigation subsystem for low-level day and night operations. It automatically can recognize targets, "hand off" a target to an infrared-guided Maverick missile, and designate a target with a laser beam for a laser-guided bomb to home on. Hughes, teamed with Martin Marietta, is responsi ble for the target recognizer and boresight correlator for Maverick hand-off. i 1 I HUGHES J i i HUGHES AIRCRAFT COMPANY INTERNATIONAL
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