Cobham has successfully demonstrated a new, cleaner, reusable technology capable of ejecting light stores from bomb racks. The Cold Gas Cartridge was successfully demonstrated at the Overberg Test Centre in South Africa on 20th November 2009.
The Cold Gas Cartridge was fitted to Cobham's Carrier Bomb Light Stores (CBLS) on a South African Air Force Hawk light attack jet. Four 12.5kg practice stores were released from the aircraft flying at a speed of 450 knots in both level and dive flight profiles.
The Cold Gas Cartridge has been designed to be reusable and will achieve the equivalent performance of traditional single-shot pyrotechnic cartridges. The system is "inherently clean" because without pyrotechnics to eject the stores, acidic debris does not accumulate, thus reducing the need for launcher maintenance and associated spares consumption.
This has the advantage of significantly reducing the lifecycle cost of the system. Added benefits of the Cold Gas Cartridge include simplified logistics support in comparison with pyrotechnics.
Installation of the Cold Gas Cartridge into an ejector release unit is a simple and quick process requiring no modification to the aircraft whilst offering weight and space saving compared to compressor and accumulator systems.
Cold Gas is now available for retro-fit in around one thousand Cobham CBLS practice bomb systems throughout the world. All future CBLS systems will be fitted with Cold Gas Cartridges.
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