One If by Air, Two If by Sea by Pete T. Anderson - HTML preview

Glossary of Terms

Amraam: Advanced, medium range air-to-air missile. A development of the older AIM-7 Sparrow, the Amraam has one big advantage over its predecessor. The AIM-7 required continuous radar illumination of the target, making it necessary for the launching aircraft to continue flying toward the enemy until impact. The missile would lose 'target-lock' if the launching platform deviated from a narrow flight path, a virtual ' ice-cream-cone-in-the-sky.' The Amraam has the colossal advantage of being a ‘fire-and-forget’ weapon. The launching pilot simply needs to wait for the missile to ‘tone’, a signal that the radar has locked on, then launch. The launching aircraft can then perform any evasive maneuvers it desires. The missile will continue to follow its target, even if it turns, until it either runs out of fuel, loses contact with the target, or destroys it.

APU: Auxiliary Power Unit, a small generator used to power secondary electrical systems during aircraft pre-flight and starting procedures. It is usually shut off after the main engines reach operating speed and RPM, as the main engines drive an integrated electrical power generator during flight, supplying electricity to all the aircraft’s systems.

CBU: Cluster Bomb Unit. A weapon delivered by aircraft, that breaks open at a pre-determined altitude and scatters smaller bombs, from 2 or 3 to a couple hundred. Extremely effective against lightly armored vehicles, automobiles, trucks and personnel.

Checking-your-six: An aviation term that refers to looking behind the aircraft for threats approaching from the rear. The rear of an aircraft is most vulnerable to missile attack, because heat-seeking IR guided missiles will try to lock onto a jet’s hot tailpipe gases. This is also the hardest place to see consistently, so a pilot will sometimes make a quick turn or change altitude to see if anyone is hiding in his blind spot.

DVD-RW: A rewriteable computer disk that looks exactly like a standard audio CD or computer CD-ROM, but can be written to and read on both sides, and on two layers. They have the capability of storing up to 16 gigabytes of information on a single disk, in certain versions. 

FAA: Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. government agency that regulates all private and commercial aircraft in the United States. They have the power to legislate upgrades and safety improvements in all planes flying on American soil, and also investigate aircraft crashes and disappearances.

Fly-by-wire: A control system for aircraft that replaces all mechanical control cables with electrical or hydraulic actuators under the control of a central computer system. This reduces the mechanical complexity of the aircraft, and allows an aerodynamically unstable aircraft shape (such as the F16 Fighting Falcon, the F-117A Night Hawk stealth aircraft and the B2 stealth bomber) to fly smoothly. The computers performs millions of calculations and make hundreds of control surface adjustments per second, to keep the aircraft flying in the desired direction. This is faster and way beyond the ability of any human to match. The control stick in the cockpit is replaced by a video-game like flight stick, which relays electrically the commands the pilot issues, to turn or climb, etc. There are usually at least three and commonly four interlinked redundant flight control computers installed in the aircraft. This is so that in the event of a single computer failure, the other computers can take over and the aircraft can continue to fly.

HARM: High speed Anti-Radiation Missile: A missile specifically designed to home in on the radio waves generated by a radar antenna. The missile will lock onto the radar source and ‘ride the beam’ all the way to its target, destroying the emitting antenna and probably the command and control center that it is attached to, if the two are in close proximity. Newer, more advanced versions of HARM will remember where the hostile emitter is located; and strike the target even if the radar is subsequently switched off, as during a multiple target attack, where the enemy realizes he is under fire and shuts down his equipment in a futile effort to save it from destruction.

HOTAS: Hands On Throttle and Stick: A revolutionary control arrangement introduced on the United States Air Force’s F-15A Eagle in the early 1970’s. This allows all major flight systems and weapons to be selected by the pilot, simply by pushing a small button on the flight stick or throttle. There are three of four switches located in various positions, their locations worked out through rigorous ergonomic testing. Before this, the flight stick usually had only one button, which would control the aircraft’s machine gun (cannon) or launch missiles, depending on what mode had been selected. The big difference here was that the pilot did not have to remove one of his hands from the controls to turn or push a weapon select or radar mode control. This allowed him to keep his eyes on the HUD, or outside the cockpit, watching for or tracking enemy aircraft. This greatly increased his chances of being the victor in an air-to-air combat scenario.

HUD: Heads-Up Display: Another device pioneered on the USAF F-15A Eagle, the heads-up display projects important flight information, like air speed and altitude, the current weapon selected, and various firing cues, onto the aircraft’s windshield. This produces a ‘ghost’ display that seems to float in front of the windshield, allowing the pilot to keep his eyes on a target and still have information that he vitally needs to fly and fight effectively. Having to refocus eyes from outside to the instruments inside was determined by the Air Force and Navy as being one of the prime contributors to American fliers losing during dog-fights, especially when faced with multiple opponents.  With a HUD and HOTAS, a pilot can fly and fight almost an entire combat mission without ever having to look inside the cockpit.

JATO: Jet Assisted Take-Off unit. A small, solid fuel rocket attached to the wings or fuselage of an aircraft to assist in reaching take-off velocity faster. They are jettisoned after takeoff, and possibly reused if repairable. They are generally used to boost heavily laden aircraft taking off from short fields, where the aircraft would otherwise run out of runway before attaining lift-off (flight) speed.

JSTARS: Joint Surveillance Tactical Airborne Radar System, an aircraft similar to an AWACS, but configured to monitor ground movement, instead of aircraft. A huge, coffin shaped antenna is grafted onto the bottom of a 707's fuselage, and feeds information to multi-color radar display screens located in the rear cabin. JSTARS was under development during the initial phases of operation 'Desert Shield', and was not slated for deployment until 1993, at the earliest. It was rushed from pre-production trials to the Gulf, under direction of the Air Force, when 'Desert Storm' broke out. Its primary function is to track armored vehicles and cars moving on paved roads. It proved less successful at finding mobile Scud launchers, which with their 6 or 8 wheel drive carrier trucks, can travel the trackless desert sands.

Napalm: Gasoline mixed with a gelling agent and stored in a bomb-shaped canister. The canister is dropped from an aircraft, and at a pre-determined altitude breaks open, dumping flaming gasoline all over the target. Napalm is almost impossible to remove, as it will stick to whatever it lands on, instead of sheeting off like gasoline will. This makes it an especially lethal weapon against ground personnel, automobiles, trucks, lightly armored vehicles and exposed ordinance, such as bullets, missiles and artillery shells. 

Port: The left side of an aircraft or ship.

Starboard: The right side of an aircraft or ship.

VDU: Video Display Unit: A black and white or full color television-screen like display mounted in the cockpit of an aircraft. They are usually multi-configurable, which means that the displays can be changed to show the status of various aircraft functions and performance indicators. A back-up magnetic compass and some other basic instrumentation is usually provided in case the main computer system fails and the VDU’s shut down. This would at least allow the pilot to navigate to the nearest airport, in cases of bad weather or at night, where VFR (visual flight rules), or ‘fly-by-eyes’ would not be possible. In the case of a fly-by-wire aircraft, however, the VDU’s would probably be receiving their data from the redundant flight control computers, so if the VDU failure were not just a simple display power supply or wiring failure, the aircraft probably would not continue to fly anyway. This would make seeing where he was going, probably the least of the pilot’s problems.