Risk of fragment hit on aircraft after releasing a bomb

Abstract: An aircraft is exposed for a certain risk during warhead deployment. If the distance is too short between the aircraftand warhead during burst, fragments may hit the aircraft with fatal consequences. The warhead consists not onlyof fragments created during burst but also parts to attach it to the aircraft such as mounting plates and fasteningloops. These parts have a significantly larger mass than natural fragments and may travel far during trajectory.The problem for a potential hit of fragment on a fighter jet after its warhead has detonated has been presentsince several decades. It is of interest to analyse the problem to effectively reduce the warheads arming time andthe aircraft’s altitude during warhead deployment. The complexity consists of how the mounting plates and fas-tening loops behave during trajectory, which may affect the travelled distance if they rotate or tumble. Attemptsto solve this problem for the Gripen fighter jet has been made by Staffan Harling at FOI which this thesis is asubsequent work. This thesis treats a risk perspective analyse of the distance between the aircraft and warhead named range safetydistance. Travelled distances for fragments are calculated with variation in velocity, drag coefficient and ejectionangle to analyse the problem to a wider extent. The conclusion states that the time from warhead deployed until it burst should be at least seven seconds. Genericdata has been used in this master thesis due to classified information concerning real cases. Focus has been onthe method and to develop a Matlab code that hopefully can be used to estimate range safety distances from aappropriate risk perspective.