Increased Aircraft Close-Support Mission Effectiveness Through Optimized Selection of Avionic Systems

The selection of avionic subsystems, which constitute an optimum integrated military aircraft electronic system, involves the analysis of three major factors: reliability, logistic compatibility, and performance. This is a discussion of the analysis of performance only, as an illustration of one major consideration in synthesizing a new aircraft avionic system. The quantitative result of this analysis would be combined with the results of analysis of the other two major factors for comparison with alternate systems similarly analyzed. One important type of close-support mission and its related avionic functions are described in terms of a required series of tasks, including navigation to the IP (identification point) and target, acquisition of the IP and target, and weapon delivery. The method of evaluating the avionic subsystems for their respective tasks is discussed, and the analytical method of evaluating system effectiveness is presented.