Aircraft Systems Classifications

5Mission Systems

The mission system encompasses those systems that provide navigation, communications, sensors, and weapons required to perform a military mission. In some cases, the aircraft type will have been specified and designed for particular roles, in other cases, the aircraft is a reused commercial aircraft type that has been adapted and equipped with a set of systems for a particular role. In this book, the systems will be referred to as mission systems and their position in the overall aircraft system structure is illustrated in Figure 5.1.

The military aircraft requires a range of sensors and computing to enable the crew to prosecute designated missions. The mission systems gain information about the outside world from active and passive sensors and process this information to form intelligence. This is used by the crew, sometimes in conjunction with remote analysts on the ground, to make decisions that may involve aggressive action. These decisions may, therefore, result in the release of weapons or defensive aids, an action which requires a particular set of safety and integrity design considerations.

As an extensive use of digital data technology as already outlined, mission systems utilise a wide range of electronic sensors covering up to 10 decades of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from 100 kHz (1 × 10⁵ Hz) up to 1000 THz (1 × 10¹⁵ Hz). This covers those areas of the electromagnetic spectrum in which communications, radar, and electro‐optic (EO) equipment ...