Exterior Ballistics for Airborne Applications

Abstract

Methods of exterior ballistics applicable to utilization in modern airborne fire control system design are documented herein. The fundamentals of exterior ballistics are included, along with a description of currently used ballistic and aerodynamic notations, a discussion of the limitations of the semi-empirical aerodynamic force and moment system, and methods of preparing aerodynamic data for use in trajectory computation. Tutorial material is provided to give the reader an understanding of windage jump caused by the complicated angular motion of a spinning projectile, The Siacci method is described and means for improving its accuracy are developed, Six-degree-of- freedom equations are derived in several different formulations for exploratory studies and digital computer computations, and the development of approximate equations for rapid evaluation of trajectory tables is included. Methods for calculating trajectory initial conditions are provided for shell fired from a turreted, gatling gun in a maneuvering aircraft, and the problems of ballistic and kinematic prediction are discussed briefly. The material covered herein should provide personnel in the Air Force and in industry with sufficient knowledge of exterior ballistics for advanced fire control system design.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1973
Accession Number
AD0913103

Entities

People

  • John M. Norwood

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerodynamic Characteristics
  • Aerodynamic Forces
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Angular Motion
  • Ballistics
  • Computations
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Equations Of Motion
  • Exterior Ballistics
  • Fire Control Systems
  • Geometry
  • Projectile Trajectories
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Facilities

Readers

  • Aviation Science / Aeronautics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • ballistics.