M/T Ejector racks - why doesn't the RAF use them?
 

Ppruners..

idle curiosity, but i just wondered why the RAF doesn't use the US Multiple or Triple ejector racks seen on US aircraft - i know that the RAF Phantom force used them, but i've never seen them on Tornado, Harrier, Jag or Typhoon... anyone know why?

i would have thought thay for the Tornado GR1 cold war mission of belting armoured formations with CBU's, or GR9/CRV-7 in Afghanistan, they'd be ideal...

CC, don't know why they didn't but now there probably no need. With smart weapons the aircraft is probably better off carrying more fuel than more ordnance.

During my days on the development team we used twin store carriers on all the heavy duty ERU pylon points, in a number of weapons configurations. This in effect doubled up the number of bomb but at the expense of losing the drop tanks.

I don't recall testing triple store carriers...

The only other RAF aircraft I can recall seeing them on was the Buccaneer, which makes me wonder if they were a Naval predilection.

Twin store carriers meant the Tornado could carry 8x1000lb bombs on the underfuselage.

The jag did carry the Phantom Sidewinder racks on the pylons when they were initially fitted, I know that because they had for Phantom use only stencilled on them :rolleyes:

Twin store carriers were a day to day fit for Harriers. Indeed 4 bare twin store carriers was one of the worst handling high alph high mach configurations. As a result when we went to the US for a first look at the new plastic wing on the YAV-8B the UK considered the benchmark for showing impovement at high speed was bare carriers. When it came to VSTOL the big issue was rolling moment with sideslip when partially jet borne. The new wing was better at both.

Twin-store carriers were all the rage in the early days of the GR1 before falling out of fashion. With the advent of PW4 there was talk of resurrecting a 'digital' twin-store carriers but not sure anything came of it. A brace of Brimstones, PW4s plus gun gives plenty of options.

Phantom AIM9 Rails
 

Apologies for thread creep, but it was the same for the Harrier. In 1982 I was an EWI on 3 Squadron in Germany, and flew over to Wittering to bring back one of the first jets with the Op Corporate mods. The sidewinder rails had 'For Phantom Use Only' stencilled, just like Nutloose's Jag example. Being a Monty Python fan I took out my chinagraph, scribbled out Phantom, and wrote Harrier in its place in homage to the 'Fish Licence' sketch ('that's not a cat licence, it's a dog licence with dog scribbled out and cat written in crayon!').

Ah, happy days. Never saw a twin store carrier on the wing in my time though.

TER's on UK F4's?
 

Sorry Cokecan...

The RAF did not use Triple Ejector Racks - TER - on either F4 or Bucc. They were Carrier Bomb, Triple Ejectors or CBTE. Similar configuration, but the angles of the shoulder stations were slightly different to accommodate the larger diameter UK stores and they used the ML Aviation, now Cobham Mission Equipment-AME, ERU No.119 Mk. [can't remember], still in use today on Hawks, KA-1 and multiple other platforms.

So equipped, the trusty F4 could carry 13 1000lb-ers, SNEB pods or Cluster B*mbs. The CBTE in-board shoulder stations, when fitted on the F4 outboard pylons, were left empty as the store would have fouled the main-gear doors. Other 'stores' were available, e.g., 8in LEPUS Recce Flare,though these were generally carried only on the CBTE shoulder stations. The Coningsby Role Bay Chiefy took the empty LEPUS Flare boxes home for his garden fence - somewhere on the Lincoln Road out of Sleaford - left hand side. Good wood that was - they were still there 15+ years later.

RAF Buccs could carry four fully loaded CBTE, 12 stores total, on the Universal Wing Pylons - S2B/D? - and whatever was hidden on the Bomb-door. I believe RN Buccs generally used 2in Rocket pods, rather than SNEB, and 540lb-ers.

MERs & TERs were great for 500lb bombs (Mk 82s in US speak) but the RAF didn't go for them, preferring the 1000lb bomb (Mk 83).

Perhaps that's a reason??????????

cheers folks...

BomberH - the UK F-4's used the US TER's for carrying BL755 and the old SNEB rocket pods, and while i've not seen an subsequnt multi-rocket pod lash up, carrying lots of BL755's was a big thing in the Harrier, Jag and Tornado GR1 force prior to the changover to widespread PGM use, so M/TER fitted a weapon the RAF was using, but it didn't get used as well: i just find that interesting and wondered if there was a actual reason for it...

as an aside, if GR1 had had two MER fitted on the belly pylons, and each filled with 6 BL755, would performance have taken a real hit? obvious its much more draggy than the 4 bomb rack that was fitted at the time, added to the weight of the bombs - is that it, that a GR1 with 12 BL755, tanks, AIM-9L, SkyShadow and Boz pod would have been unflyable?

The reason UK went for CBTE, not M/TER, was the same reason as installing the Spey rather than the original J79: UK content, in addition to the slight change in geometry of the shoulder stations. That from the Phantom Weaps School Chiefy of the time, one Dougie H*****stall.

CBTE - Carrier B*mb, Triple Ejector

The Load Teams would have had to put the aircraft - Tornado GR1 - on jacks if the lower station of the CBTE had been loaded, indeed I doubt there would have been enough clearance underneath as the CBTE's were fitted fully loaded and the Handling and Loading Cradle ironwork added quite a few inches under the lower store.

The accuracy of 1000lb bombs released from Tornado twin store carriers was worse than when the bombs were directly mounted on the pylon. This was because the carriers twisted slightly as each bomb came off (they didn't come off simultaneously, to avoid collisions) and the twist meant that the bombs diverged left and right of the mean line. It was eventually judged that 5 more-accurate bombs were better than 8 less-accurate bombs once all the tradeoffs in aircraft performance, etc, were considered.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3...RAF/8bombs.jpg

8 x BL755 could be carried and these suffered less from the aiming inaccuracies. As for digital TSCs for Paveway IV, these never got beyond the "wouldn't it be nice if..." stage as far as I'm aware. They really would be great though, wouldn't they!

The Jaguar could carry tandem beam carriers on the inboard pylons, but I never flew with them fitted.

I understand they swung around a fair bit at low level.