Experimental Study for the Safety Analysis of an External Store Separation from Fighter Aircraft

The prediction of the separation trajectories of external stores carried by military aircraft is an important task in the area of aircraft design having the objective to define the operational, release envelopes. This paper presents the results obtained for safe store separation from a fighter aircraft by experimental methods in the subsonic wind tunnel. The problems associated with separation of external stores can be studied by the use of several wind-tunnel test techniques. Attention is given the two most useful techniques: 1) dynamically scaled drop-model testing, 2) grid testing. A description of each method is given and data obtained are shown to validate the similarity within acceptable limits.