AEDC workers validate airborne surface to air missile simulator for flight tests

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  A team at Arnold Engineering Development Center recently completed a successful series of tests to help protect low-flying military aircraft operating in hostile air space.

Tests were conducted on a Towed Airborne Plume Simulator (TAPS), a missile simulator that can be towed 500 to 1000 meters behind an aircraft to test early warning sensors on military aircraft and allow for either evasive or defensive action.

"The Air Force tasked us to design and develop a TAPS burner to simulate missiles signatures in a number of different configurations," explained George Wilcher, Aerospace Testing Alliance program manager for the tests. "Ultimately, this simulator will allow airborne missile detection systems to be tested more thoroughly and realistically."

The team at AEDC had to construct a temporary High Speed Fan Facility (HSFF) to develop and operationally verify the TAPS burner system in support of upcoming flight testing to ensure the reliability of sensors and a realistic missile plume.

"The High Speed Fan Facility is a relatively small wind tunnel that allows us to 'fly' the TAPS vehicle on the ground so we could evaluate the plume," Mr. Wilcher said. "The burner for the Towed Airborne Plume Simulator uses triethyl aluminum as fuel. The resulting plume simulates the infrared signature of a typical man-portable air defense system (MANPADS), a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile weapon. The overall intensity of the plume throughout the missile's trajectory, from launch to target acquisition, is controlled by varying the flow rate of the fuel.

"By using off-the-shelf components, designing a small, but sophisticated computerized flow control - the burner control system unit - and fabricating a specialized valve to alter the plume, we were able to keep the cost for the project in budget. " he said. "The burner assembly fits inside the Towed TAPS Vehicle that simulates a MANPADS."

"We were also able to cannibalize some large ducting to incorporate into the High Speed Fan Facility - that alone saved us more than $300,000."