Derivation of MALD Ground Test Vibration Requirements from Captive Carriage Flight Tests

Patrick Willems, Raytheon Missile Systems

Scott Fling, JE Sverdup

Abstract:

The Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) is an air launched jet propelled, folded planer wing, vehicle that is under development by Raytheon for the U.S. Air Force. The MALD carries special avionics devices that will allow it to appear as a fighter or bomber on an air defense system radar display. As part of the design and development process, three instrumented measurement vehicles (IMVs) were built, instrumented and flown in captive carriage on the B-52 and F-16. The purpose was to measure captive carriage environments including vibration, acoustics, and static loads using a variety of sensors. The measured data was telemetered to a ground receiving site as well as recorded with an onboard recorder. This paper gives an overview of the flight test program, measurement methodologies and the vibration specification generation process including the use of actual F-16 mission data to develop ground test durations representative of a statistical lifetime of captive carriage.

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