Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

Ooops, sorry. I try not to use acronyms, but they occasionally slip out after so many years.

GIB = guy in back. The backseater on some of our test flights did more data monitoring than the pilot possibly could, as he was tasked to hit the test points precisely (very specific air speed, AOA, G-load, altitude, climb/dive rate, etc).

Again, only a guess from a casual observer, as I did most of my flight test time at Edwards, and not at Hill, and our test jets had on-board instrumentation recording packages. The AQRIP probably recorded inflight activity on the 1553 bus. So as the aircraft was flying with a weapon, or system up and running, the recorder in the pod would capture all the activity streaming across the 1553, including time, altitude, airspeed, g-loads, and possibly cockpit switch position changes. After the flight, the data were decompressed, and could be printed out on strip charts, to show what was happening, and exactly when. And this could be compared with video from the HUD, or another photo chase aircraft. So for instance, if a new seeker head detected something interesting, how did it communicate this info to the rest of the aircraft [i.e. SMS (stores management system), FCC (fire control computer), RTWS (radar threat warning system, IBU (interference blanking unit), etc.]

Again, only speculation on my part. Hopefully someone out there knows with some greater certainty.

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Pumpkin, all I know about the AQRIP is what they have on their website - here is the text and (hopefully) an image link:

Quote:

The Advanced Quick Reaction Instrumentation Pod (AQRIP) was specially designed by software development personnel at the Ogden Air Logistics Center on Hill AFB in conjunction with personnel from General Dynamics Fort Worth Division for support of the F-16 aircraft. The pod recorded traffic on the aircraft's multiplex communication bus for troubleshooting avionics problems. It was donated to the museum by the Software Division of the OOALC Maintenance Directorate in June 2003.

Forum Veteran Joined: Nov 07, 2003 - 09:12 PM Posts: 901

copied that guys. It didn't occur to me, collecting data over the 1553 can be this complex. I was under the impression, a simple 'eavesdrop' routine in the bus controller (FCC) will do the job.

cheers,

Guy In Back (GIB) referring to a backseater.

Recording off the 1553 isn't complex at all. You can easily "eavesdrop" 1553 activity via the FCC for short duration events. But if you wanted to see data from many different test runs on a single flight, and record each, it's best to have that on-board recording capability. You can then recreate test run, after test run, and compare the results back on the ground. And a side-note, the on-board recorder also allows for classified test missions to be captured, without the need for expensive encrytped telemetry, data links, and control rooms. It's also very useful in troubleshooting software related problems, to see what data packages stream across the 1553, and exactly when.

When I worked on them there were four different 1553 MUX buses on the aircraft. IIRC to 'monitor' you had to have a terminal/port/address on the bus just like any other black box. I guess a pod like this could just pretend it was an RIU on a station.

Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

ROCAF Unidentified 'Pod'