Blogs Viewpoints and Perspectives

Aerial combat CONOPS has evolved over the last hundred years, responding to modernizing threats, to better prepare operators and maintainers to have the highest chances of success in combat. Often times it becomes a balance of capability, capacity and speed, where speed normally is the most critical component. In moments of high operating tempo, when problems begin occurring, capability or capacity sometimes are compromised in the effort to preserve a unit’s speed of attack. Read More...

The single best option to fully test a military aircraft’s armament system would be to launch or drop munitions from the station in question, and wouldn’t this be fun for our service members involved! Unfortunately for all, this reality cannot exist for many reasons, so aircraft armament technicians are left with the task of functionally testing these interfaces. However, when the interfaces are tested, most often the process of expending the munitions is far from accurately simulated. In fact, the test sets armament maintainers utilize simply report the presence of continuity or stay voltage, omitting critical test data. Read More...

We’ve all heard the term “garbage in, garbage out”, and most of us are probably guilty of providing the “garbage” inputs or results sometime in our careers. Documentation is probably the single most affected area where these errors occur.  Read More...

As I’ve previously written, armament testing can be very complex and difficult given all the different parameters and configurations. Today, the Air Force still employs Vietnam-era munitions off Vietnam-era aircraft, as well as modern munitions off of 5^th generation aircraft.  Read More...

As programs within the Department of Defense attempt to advance and accelerate at breakneck speeds toward what some might feel are science fiction solutions, what is being used to evaluate when the bar has been set too high?  Read More...

How are maintainers to ensure that laser or heat seeking munitions, such as laser JDAM, Paveway or Sidewinder, will be able to successfully pick up the target?  Read More...

Winston Churchill once stated, “I never worry about action, but only inaction”. Today as US Air Force leaders shift focus back to the high-end fight and try to invigorate their service to achieve these goals many have realized that major capability gaps have been created.  Read More...

For over 20 years I worked on flightlines around the world, maintaining a variety of U.S. Air Force fighter, attack and helicopter airframes. During this time, as one can imagine, I was required to use numerous different test sets to ensure these critical assets were always ready to perform their intended mission. The test sets ranged in size from small handheld lamp test sets to “advanced” test sets which took multiple people to transport. Read More...

Maintaining test systems with extended life cycles is a constant challenge for test engineers, and the need to upgrade or replace system components is an accepted part of maintaining a test system. Read More...

Digital Subsystem

One fundamental tenet for most functional test applications is to validate performance of the device under test without harming or degrading its capabilities, and the digital subsystem is ideal for this type of verification.  Read More...

Automatic test systems designed to validate the performance of military and aerospace products have always been held to a higher standard; emerging threats to data security and instrumentation integrity continue to raise this bar. Read More...

mmWave RF Subsystem

Vector network analyzers (VNAs) are at the heart of any high performance mmWave test system, and GENASYS Semiconductor solutions are no exception. VNAs are specialized radio frequency (RF) analyzers that provide both amplitude and phase measurements; these instruments deliver results that are far superior to scalar network analyzers (SNAs) which only return the amplitude properties of the measured signal.  Read More...

Over the past few years, I’ve heard a lot with regard to making systems more “agile”, with much of the focus placed on the software. When an agile system is broken into its major components this enterprise focus on software makes sense, given the complexity of developing, testing, integrating and fielding new software and version updates. Read More...

Many aspects of the test system require additional scrutiny when operating at mmWave frequencies such as the obvious RF instrumentation, cables and interconnects, the load board design and system level calibration. Read More...

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” We’ve probably all heard this quote in some form or another. I believe it applies to creating requirements for a new acquisitions program within the DoD. During my 20 years’ tenure in the United States Air Force, four of which I spent working as the ACC F-16 Armament Manager, I’ve heard and seen plenty of great plans with amazing justification, only to watch them crash and burn in spectacular fashion! Read More...

Through the DoD Automatic Test Systems Executive Directorate,  Read More...

Five different aircraft Field Training Detachment (FTD) courses, 200+ hours of aircraft test set training, 15 unique Intermediate and Operational-Level test sets utilized; all for one USAF Armament troop. Makes sense, right? Each aircraft is unique, so logic would say “You can’t test an F-16 the same as an F-15E or F-22.” But why not? Is it possible to have a  Read More...

Have you ever bought a vehicle with thousands of dollars of extra add-ons, which you didn’t want and know you won’t use? My guess is, if you did, it was out of necessity and not something anyone would chose to do. Who would want to increase their overall purchase price for things they can’t and won’t use? I for one would not. Read More...

How is it we put a man on the moon in 1969, but today we still can’t figure out when an aircraft electrical system is about to fail? Electrical failures are unique, as I’ve seen aircraft fail in flight on their first mission, even though they passed operational testing the day before. How can this be, since it just PASSED? Read More...

Have you ever wondered if the engineer who designed a system to be utilized on a military flightline has in fact, ever been on a flightline? I know I have, from installing difficult gun systems on fighter aircraft to using Vietnam-era support equipment on fifth generation aircraft, I’ve wondered “Who designed this?” The same can be said for test sets. The truth is, many test sets which are employed on flightlines around the world made me cringe at the thought of having to use them. Read More...