Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

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

I would like to re-surface the question jcvikman & I have had when the photo of the RoCAF Viper was revealed with the Harpoon. We were wondering what was the pod hanging on station 7. (ARC thread here)

cheers, Smile

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Pumpkin wrote:

I would like to re-surface the question jcvikman & I have had when the photo of the RoCAF Viper was revealed with the Harpoon. We were wondering what was the pod hanging on station 7.

That looks like the telemetry pod I saw on display at the Hill AFB museum last month - it was a converted travel pod stuffed full of data collection equipment.

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

Telemetry pod? It could be it, habu2. They were probably testing the Harpoon. It never occurred to me, telemetry can be performed by the mean of external store. Cool!

Hey Pumpkin,

Can you point me to the place where I would be able to find these F-16 photographs. I'm not realy into Taiwanese and I don't understand one bit of that site. I just can't find their gallery.

Greets,

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

Hi Bjorn,

I am glad to help. We have to register as a member before we can access the photo gallery on Aviation@NET.

cheers,

http://www.taiwanairpower.org/images/f16/

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

habu2 wrote:

http://www.taiwanairpower.org/images/f16/

Sorry habu2, I was under the impression, Bjorn was enquiring about Aviation@NET?

Yes Pumpkin,

I am. Registration is fine with me. But on which button should I push to get going? <i>Me no speak ching chang</i>. For your information, I'm not being degrading to our Taiwanese visitors, by no means.

Greets,

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

you're doing fine for you to get registered! I'm impressed.

For the photo gallery,
- it is on the left hand side,
- the window below the window with scrolling text.
The first option is Civilian Gallery
The second option is Military Gallery
And I believe the third option is slide show, if I read the text correctly Razz

cheers,

Here is a link to the telemetry pod I mentioned. It isn't exactly like the one in the Harpoon-related thread but it does show how travel pods and even fuel pods (shapes) can be used.

http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/aqrip.htm

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

Thanks for the link, habu2. I guess that pod was employed before LM have the concept of telemetry capable Viper, was it Shocked

?

It looked pretty old when I saw it, there was a programming console the size of a suitcase, with one of those small monochrome screens like you see on ATMs now. Haven't seen those in many moons...

Just a guess, and an uneducated one at that, but that pod probably isn't a telemetry pod. There's no external antenna apparent to transmit the data to the ground station, or to uplink to a satellite relay link. My guess would be that it’s either an instrumentation pod, just capturing and recording data inflight from the Harpoon and the aircraft (loads, flutter, internal activity on the 1553 bus, etc), or it’s a Harpoon airborne simulator (with a similar seeker head in that red nose). As the aircraft isn’t a flight test bird, it probably doesn’t have the on-board 10” Ampex tape recorders most testbeds do, therefore, it wouldn’t have any way to capture what the Harpoon is seeing and doing, inflight, in real time (for download and data analysis after the flight). If it’s an airborne simulator, the GIB may be monitoring, and comparing what the real Harpoon sees, versus what the sim sees. And it might just be there for loads balancing (same weight, and aerodynamic drag coefficients, etc).
And the telemetry that a “normal” F-16 is capable of, via Link 16, is no where near the bandwidth and data stream capacity of a true flight test aircraft, with the ability to pass massive amounts of data (including digital video, and hundreds of on-board sensors) to the control room for real-time monitoring and analysis. Just a guess though.

My bad, the AQRIP is an instrumentation (recording) device, not a telemetry transmitter. Data was downloaded from the pod after the jet landed (sneakernet).

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

thanks again for the response guys, most informative.

sorry FlightTestJim, what does GIB stands for Shocked

?

habu2, what exactly did the Advanced Quick Reaction Instrumentation Pod records, that was of interest after flight? The link to hill.af.mil seem to be broken over my side Confused

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Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

ROCAF Unidentified 'Pod'