Weapons Delivery Principles And Procedures
Weapons
WEAPONS DELIVERY PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURES
Up to this point, we have discussed procedural matters. We now come to the most important topic
of all: how to deliver the weapon onto the target. All the procedures discussed, though they are
certainly important, have one common purpose: to allow you to arrive at the roll-in point. It is what
you do between roll-in and release that will determine the accuracy of your delivery. In order to
introduce the procedures to be used during the weapons run, we must first discuss some of the
basic principles involved. This discussion is of necessity brief, and the mathematics have been
shortened or deleted.
THEORY OF WEAPONS DELIVERY
DEFINITIONS
(See Figure 25)
Line of Flight
The path of the aircraft through the
ht
lig
air.
fF
eo
Lin
ht
ig
Dive Angle
fS
o
ne
The angle between the line of flight
Li
and the ground.
Dive Angle
Line of Sight
A line from the pilot’s eye through
the pipper. This line does not
normally pass through the target
until release.
e
Lin
m
tu
Da
Armament Datum Line
Note: Location of ADL is compensated
t
en
am
for in sight depression tables.
The armament datum line (ADL) is
rm
A
a fixed reference line on the
Sight Angle
ed
pe
aircraft. It will be parallel with the
irs
ea
flight path at 450 kts TAS release
s
ea
rel
ht
airspeed. At other than release
at
ig
th
S
pa
of
airspeed, it will vary from parallel.
ht
ne
flig
Li
The angle between flight path and
to
lel
ral
ADL is called the angle of attack of
a
Lp
the armament datum line; this is
AD
not the same as the AOA mea-
sured by the aircraft instrument.
Figure 25: TERMINOLOGY
This angle decreases to zero
(ideally) as the aircraft accelerates
to 450 kts TAS, so flight path and armament datum line are the same at release airspeed.
Sight Angle
The angle between the ADL and the line of sight, sometimes called “sight depression angle.” With a
sight angle of zero, the line of sight is parallel to the ADL. With any depressed sight angle, the line
(4-03) Original
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