FLIGHT TRAINING INSTRUCTION T-45 WEAPONS/STRIKE - Cnatra

CHAPTER THREE T-45 WEAPONS/STRIKE
sanctuary. Our target attack planning should craft a solution to avoid or minimize our time spent
in this threat envelope, thereby increasing our chances of survivability while decreasing his.
Weapon fragmentation from the weapon exploding can reach up and damage our aircraft. We
want to plan our release as to recover the aircraft above this “frag pattern”. Weapon Arming
Time (fusing) is a safety practice to reduce the possibility of our aircraft flying into the fragments
of the weapon we just delivered. Each weapon will have some type of fusing. A time delay is
set on our fuses, allowing us to time to maneuver the aircraft safely away from the detonation. If
we release too low, the time of fall of the weapon is decreased, the fuse doesn’t have time to arm,
therefore causing the weapon to “dud”. The Mk 76 has an instantaneous type of fuse which will
cause the smoke charge to detonate upon impact.
The last threat, and most importantly to us in the Training Command, is terrain. Since enemy
threat on a raked range target is highly unlikely, the Mk 76 does not explode (but may bounce or
skip), and fusing is not a factor, hitting the ground with our aircraft becomes our number one
threat and consideration. We need to plan our release as to recover the aircraft at some safe
altitude without impacting the ground.
There needs to be a fine balance between how low, how fast, and how steep our aircraft is when
defining our release point. If we release steeper and/or faster than our planned release
parameters we will be increasing the altitude lost on our recovery/pull-out from the dive, driving
us closer to the threat.
The components of the T-45C “Z” Diagram are shown in Figure 3-16. The bottom line
represents the release altitude, the diagonal line represents the flight path, and the top line
represents the pattern altitude. The dive angle/Flight Path Angle is shown as well as an
intermediate point during the tracking run called a “Checkpoint”. The checkpoint altitude is
calculated to be 1.5 times the release altitude and is a “how-goes-it” point.
3-14 WEAPONS DELIVERY THEORY AND PRINCIPLES