Experimental Evaluation of an Airborne Illumination System

Abstract

To evaluate an airborne illumination system for night reconnaissance, two investigations were conducted, one in flight and one in the laboratory, both using scaled simulation. The in-flight investigation suggested the desirability of: (1) using an observation aircraft flying below the “light ship”; and (2) increasing the limits of permissable lateral coverage of the lights. Both hypotheses were confirmed by a scale-model laboratory experiment.