Development and Testing of the F/A-18 Replacement MIL-STD-1760 Umbilical

Abstract

The U.S. Navy F/A-18 aircraft currently uses a generic weapon umbilical cable with the new MIL-STD-1760 interface weapons. The existing cable has been shown to be problematic during weapon separation/integration testing and general fleet use. Modification of the existing cable was not feasible so redesign was required for replacement. The goals of the replacement cable design were to fix the specific problem areas of the existing cable as well as improving overall performance and service life. The service life goals for the umbilical were to be suitable for reuse for at least 25-30 releases. NAWCAD (4.11.2) developed a testing approach for qualification of the umbilical and to credibly assess service performance potential without specific airborne release tests. The qualification effort 5 discussed from an overall perspective as well as details of the lightning testing of the connector, static, and ejection testing, and captive flight testing of the cable. A short summary of post. certification efforts involving the umbilical is also given along with conclusions concerning the test effort.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA388256

Entities

People

  • Greg Miller
  • Susan Jahn

Organizations

  • Naval Air Warfare Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Bombs
  • Composite Materials
  • Connectors
  • Department Of Defense
  • Ejection
  • Electromagnetic Radiation
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Flight
  • Flight Testing
  • Lightning
  • Resilience
  • Satellite Guided Weapons
  • Software Testing
  • Static Tests
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Equipment

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Electrical Engineering