Over the years, modern fighter aircraft have received numerous upgrades to their avionics and armament systems. From the F-35 to the A-10, all of the aircraft now possess “smart” (Mil-STD 1553 and 1760) weapons technology and enhancements to legacy weapons. Today’s armament systems do not resemble the systems TAC, now called Air Combat Command (ACC), deployed almost four decades ago. Yet, maintainers are still required to use the same or similar ACPTS (Armament Circuits Pre-load Test Sets) combined with big box test equipment to verify that these sophisticated armament and munitions systems are Full Mission Capable (FMC). Additionally, this combination of box testers and ACPTS equipment doesn't deliver the capabilities needed to support today’s Smart weapons.The advanced Smart armament and munitions employed today, combined with obsolete or inadequate test equipment deployed on the flight line, has created an armament test gap because of the inability of today’s O-Level testers to provide the necessary tools to test and maintain armament and munitions. The armament test gap represents major maintenance and readiness issues for maintainers and operators alike due to the necessity of having to implement of a multitude of workarounds on the flight line.
Having identified the armament test gap in legacy 4th and 5th generation aircraft several years ago, Marvin Test Solutions has developed, qualified, and successfully deployed the MTS-3060 SmartCan™ universal O-level tester across legacy aircraft and is planning to do the same for 5th generation aircraft. Despite maintaining the small footprint of a ACPTS, the MTS-3060 SmartCan™ bridges the armament test gap by combining all of the capabilities of the ACPTS and
provides maintainers with the necessary tools to adequately test and troubleshoot today’s aircraft loaded with legacy and smart weapons.
To read more about how the MTS-3060 is bridging the armament test gap, click  here.
|
|
Keywords
|
Mil-STD 1553, Mil-STD-1760, SmartCan, MTS-3060, Armament Test System , Weapons Test, SMS Test, ACPTS
|