Orca,
Good questions.
27+ years ago, in the early 90's, I worked flight test (FTE) on the original Sea Harrier/ AMRAAM development at BAe Dunsfold and then at Eglin AFB. Time dulls the details, but we certainly had a jettison capability on our development test aircraft (ZA195 and XZ439). We used that jettison capability to prove the safe separation of AMRAAM CATM/ MSV inert shapes over Lyme Bay ahead of the Eglin firing trials. I was not specifically involved in those initial separation trials, but I recall (maybe incorrectly) that the C/L station jettison switch on the WCP was used. It is possible that we wired our test jets up differently than the subsequent production fleet jets to get that specific capability. I do recall that we flew the AMRAAM test missiles (IAV, IMV, ITV) specifically non-jett by not fitting the LAU cartridges, as those test weapons were not cleared for jettison.
I could have sworn from memory that we had a Emergency Jett capability for the fuselage AMRAAMs, useful to help out as a last-chance during a poor ski-jump launch.
Again, production jets may have been different than our highly modified test aircraft that we worked with.
Last edited by JSF-TC; 12th Aug 2018 at 22:27.