Air-to-Ground Target Acquisition with Flare Illumination

Despite the advent of many exotic sensors for detecting targets at night, a significant portion of airborne tactical activity is carried out via direct vision, usually involving some type of artificial illumination, with air- dropped parachute flares. The use of flares constitutes one of the most difficult visual requirements for aircraft crew members attempting to detect targets at night. Efforts by the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, Wright- Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, have involved simulating various illumination sources, and requiring subjects to detect scaled-down targets under different terrain and illumination conditions. The paper is concerned with the results from three recent experiments. Experiment I dealt with the effect of shielding a 25,000,000-lumen flare source and determining the optimal number of flares to be used for a given target area. Experiment II dealt with shielding of a 60,000, 000-lumen source. Experiment III dealt with the visual acuity under simulated flare light. The parameters of this study have been used and the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, in conjunction with the Air Force Armament Laboratory, is conducting flight tests to validate the altitude data of the experimental simulations. Reprinted from AGARD-CPP-100, AGARD Conference Pre-Print No. 100 on Air to Ground Target Acquisition.