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Aviation History
1984
1984 - 0084.PDF
SCIENCE SCOFE Efficient ways to assemble and test the AMRAAM missile have arisen from having manufacturing test engineers work with design engineers from the early stages of missile development. The groups teamed to develop common test specifications, test equipment, and testing techniques. Their efforts are expected to drastical ly reduce test correlation problems and to allow the missile to be produced immediately at a high rate. Hughes Aircraft Company designed and developed the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile for the U.S. Air Force and Navy. The U.S. Army will save almost $100 million in the next three years with its first multiyear production contract with Hughes. The Army will take delivery of 2,161 laser rangefinders and thermal imaging systems for its Ml Abrams main battle tank through late 1986. The multiyear contract has several advantages over "second sourcing," in which one company is chosen to build hardware based on a first company's design. The large investment needed to prepare the second manufacturer for production is eliminated. Because long-term planning is made easier, parts can be bought cheaply in one large order and production control costs are reduced. Also, contractor and subcontractor work forces stabilize. An infrared sensor made of standard components turns night into day for tanks and other combat vehicles. The compact device, called Hughes Infrared Equipment (HIRE), was designed to be low in cost yet high performing. It can be adapted to periscopes to let gunners of such tanks as the M48 see through darkness, haze, or battlefield smoke. HIRE can be mounted in laser tank fire control systems, light armored vehicles, or used as a target acquisition/fire control sight for anti aircraft, ship, and helicopter applications. The design uses U.S. Army common modules, the standard building blocks for thermal imaging systems. Space shuttle crews will soon be able to rendezvous with satellites in low orbit in order to repair or recover them, thanks to a new integrated radar and communi cations subsystem that passed its first tests on the shuttle last June and August. The Hughes subsystem, also called a Ku band radar, has an antenna dish at the front of the cargo bay. It can pinpoint objects as small as 1 square yard from up to 14 miles away. If the object is equipped with an electronic signal enhancer, the range increases to 345 miles. A laser ranqefinder instantly draws a bead on air and ground targets so U.S. Army gunners can shoot on the move with the SGT YORK Division Air Defense Gun System. The SGT YORK is armed with two 40mm guns housed in an armored turret mounted on a modified M48A5 tank chassis. The rangefinder pinpoints the distance to enemy helicopters and aircraft based on the time it takes a laser burst to reach the target and reflect back — a span measured in millionths of a second. The gun's fire control computer uses this information to score a quick hit. Hughes delivered the first production laser rangefinder on schedule to the DIVAD Division of Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp. Creating a new world with electronics I 1 !HUGHES! i i HUGHES AIRCRAFT COMPANY For additional information please write to: RO. Box 11205, Marina del Rey. CA 90295
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