DeHavilland Dash-8 Aircraft airborne system testing

Abstract

The 84th Test Squadron, a part of the USAF Air Warfare Center in the Air Combat Command, was tasked with assessing the operational effectiveness and suitability of the DeHavilland Dash-8 Aircraft (E-9A) airborne platform/telemetry relay aircraft. The E-9A is an integral part of the Gulf Range instrumentation system at Tyndall AFB and Eglin AFB, Florida. It supports air-to-air (AA) missile firings against aerial drone targets for fighter pilot training and for test and evaluation. The ability to command fighters and targets and to receive telemetry data is currently limited to line of sight (LOS) because of land-based transmitters and receivers. Future operations will be conducted over-the-horizon (OTH), rather than with present LOS systems, because of the increasing number of near-shore pleasure boats and lower altitude missile launches. The E-9A is designed to extend the effective range of existing land-based instrumentation systems. It does this by providing the telemetry, communications, and drone control relay required to support OTH missions in the Gulf of Mexico. It also provides radar surveillance of boats in the Gulf to establish a clear area free of boats for missile launches. This publication covers the qualification operational test and evaluation of the E-9A which was an evaluation of its capability to provide Gulf Range users with radar sea surveillance, telemetry relay, ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio relay, and Gulf Range drone control relay.