FedEx anti-missile system

The first jet that takes off with the system in auto, and catches sun glare reflections from windows of parked cars or buildings and starts kicking out its program cocktail. Haven’t seen that before….. :)
 
MikeD said:
The first jet that takes off with the system in auto, and catches sun glare reflections from windows of parked cars or buildings and starts kicking out its program cocktail. Haven’t seen that before….. :)
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AN/ALE-39 is most effective at airshows and Tiger cruises.
 
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///AMG said:
Lol I did my first deployment into AFG with that garbage. I think they rolled off the line in like 1970. So good....not that it mattered there, for us
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The flares were pretty. Also, if the • hit the fan, you pretty much had to dump everything as it was unlikely you would trust the load out. Was that flares or chaff on the right?
 
MikeD said:
The first jet that takes off with the system in auto, and catches sun glare reflections from windows of parked cars or buildings and starts kicking out its program cocktail. Haven’t seen that before….. :)
Click to expand...
A..P..R......39.......operational. Or better yet giving the guys up front a yoke switch to deploy an event. Same result but now there is someone to blame.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
The flares were pretty. Also, if the • hit the fan, you pretty much had to dump everything as it was unlikely you would trust the load out. Was that flares or chaff on the right?
Click to expand...

I want to say it could be either, but it has been a while....we also only had 2 buckets rather than the 4 on the E/F/G, which was limiting. They also had a bad habit of uncommanded release of expendables in the F/A-18 for a while. One of the safety interlocks was having weight on wheels, so if there was an additional failure in the consent switch, you'd end up dumping them out right when you lifted off. Knew a guy who dumped 30 flares down the runway at Miramar in this manner. Fortunately for him, they were able to determine that it was caused by a faulty switch on the throttle, and not by a faulty pilot brain :)

As for the load, yeah we had to manually set this little mechanical counter wheel thingie between your legs/feet, based on whatever you counted on pre-flight.
 
Wardogg said:
A..P..R......39.......operational. Or better yet giving the guys up front a yoke switch to deploy an event. Same result but now there is someone to blame.
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ours more often than not, had an F in the center of the scope.

i was used to ALR-46/69, then get transitioned to this crap -39
 
///AMG said:
As for the load, yeah we had to manually set this little mechanical counter wheel thingie between your legs/feet, based on whatever you counted on pre-flight.
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On the Hog, we had 16 slots for 30-count boxes per slot, assuming 1x1s loaded per box, for a total of 480 1x1s. Could do all chaff or all flare, but generally was 240 of each, flares on the inboard boxes and chaff on the outboard boxes. Unfortunately to set the ALE-40 settings, they were inside a door on the left exterior of the jet near the lower aft part of the canopy. So, if you failed to check/verify it before takeoff, you got whatever the weapons people left it at last.
 
MikeD said:
On the Hog, we had 16 slots for 30-count boxes per slot, assuming 1x1s loaded per box, for a total of 480 1x1s. Could do all chaff or all flare, but generally was 240 of each, flares on the inboard boxes and chaff on the outboard boxes. Unfortunately to set the ALE-40 settings, they were inside a door on the left exterior of the jet near the lower aft part of the canopy. So, if you failed to check/verify it before takeoff, you got whatever the weapons people left it at last.
Click to expand...

Yeah all our release programming settings were manipulated on a box with mechanical wheels that was behind the ejection seat down in what we called the "hell hole"....no ability to adjust it after strapping in. Luckily we got rid of all this nonsense with ALE-47, which is the entire fleet at this point (other than a few non-operational Hornets still flying).
 
///AMG said:
Yeah all our release programming settings were manipulated on a box with mechanical wheels that was behind the ejection seat down in what we called the "hell hole"....no ability to adjust it after strapping in. Luckily we got rid of all this nonsense with ALE-47, which is the entire fleet at this point (other than a few non-operational Hornets still flying).
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on the F-117, we had nothing. No chaff, flares, or ALE/ALR. In theory, we shouldn’t need them. In theory. But also, there would be nowhere to install them, that wouldn’t affect the RCS.
 
///AMG said:
I want to say it could be either, but it has been a while....we also only had 2 buckets rather than the 4 on the E/F/G, which was limiting. They also had a bad habit of uncommanded release of expendables in the F/A-18 for a while.
Click to expand...

On the (Legacy) Hornet and Tomcat (I think), you could automate chaff release by slaving to the ALR-67 (?). So, consistent loadout probably mattered. I think slaving to the RWR was a big culprit on uncommanded releases.
 
MikeD said:
on the F-117, we had nothing. No chaff, flares, or ALE/ALR. In theory, we shouldn’t need them. In theory. But also, there would be nowhere to install them, that wouldn’t affect the RCS.
Click to expand...

Remember to turn off the lights and hope for the best.
 
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