FLIGHT TRAINING INSTRUCTION T-45 WEAPONS/STRIKE - Cnatra

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
INTRODUCTION
Military aircraft are designed to destroy an enemy's potential to wage war. The primary means to
accomplish this mission is by delivering various types of ordnance upon enemy personnel,
equipment, and installations. Accurate delivery of ordnance on surface targets is one of the
primary missions of naval aviation and is accomplished with a wide variety of special and
conventional weapons. Delivery techniques vary as widely as the weapons themselves, and vary
from conventional dives of all angles to computer-integrated loft maneuvers. To be a true
professional, you - the Naval Aviator - must be thoroughly versed in air-to-ground delivery.
OBJECTIVE
The primary objective of the Weapons stage is to develop your basic skills of weapons delivery.
The most important of these skills involves developing consistency in two concepts - rolling in
and tracking. You will find that the basic skills you already learned, such as formation flying and
instrument scan, will be helpful in the weapons delivery stage. The ultimate objective is to teach
you how to make the ordnance hit the target. This publication will emphasize the fundamentals
of weapons delivery and their application to various types of practice ordnance. The procedures
contained here, except those labeled "techniques," must be closely followed. For Training
Command purposes, the most important aspect of weapons delivery is consistency in roll-in and
tracking. Diversification can come later, after building basic skills.
GRADING
Because accuracy of delivery is the goal of weapons training, it will be graded on all but the first
few flights. You will determine accuracy by figuring the Circular Error Probability (CEP). The
CEP is a statistical median, and is theoretically the radius of a circle within which half the pilot's
bombs could be expected to fall. Figure your CEP by arranging your hits from best to worst; the
CEP is the middle hit of an odd number of drops or the average of the middle two hits of an even
number of drops. Count off-target hits of unknown distance as 500 feet. Four drops are required
to compute a CEP and complete a flight. All scored hits will count toward the flight CEP,
regardless of the pattern in which the individual bombs were dropped. Accuracy will be graded
in accordance with the guidelines found in the applicable master curriculum guide (MCG).
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