By this time, Brunswick Defense Corporation of Costa Mesa, California, was well into development of a series of less sophisticated decoys that would see much more operational use.
Brunswick had worked on decoy concepts through the 1960s, leading to a USAF contract in 1968 for a technology demonstration. The result was the "Maxi-Decoy" series, which were also intended to support radar jamming, chaff-flare dispensing, and ELINT missions.
The first of the series was the "Model 150", first flown in 1973, which was an unpowered glide decoy with pop-out "switchblade" wings. It weighed only 59 kilograms (130 pounds), and two could be carried on a single underwing stores pylon. The Model 150 led to the scaled-up "Model 300", which was similar but weighed 180 kg, giving it much greater payload capacity. Speed and range of these gliders was of course dependent on the speed, altitude, and launch angle of the launch aircraft, but was nominally up to about 750 kph and 140 km.
The third in the Maxi-Decoy series was the "Model 290P". The "P" apparently stood for "powered", since the Model 290P had a solid rocket motor that could burn for up to 300 seconds. It was otherwise similar in configuration to its predecessors, and weighed 136 kg. The USAF did not order production of the Maxi-Decoys, but Brunswick sold an unpowered decoy named "Samson" to the Israelis. Apparently the Samson was a variant of the Model 300 Maxi-Decoy.
The Israelis had lost far too many aircraft to Arab air defenses during the Yom Kippur War (1973), and decided to invest in decoys as a countermeasure in future conflicts. The Samson decoys were part of the suite of countermeasures the Israelis used over the Bekaa Valley in War in Lebanon in (1982) against Syrian air defenses with dramatic effect.
The US Navy suffered at the hands of Syrian air defenses during America's intervention in Lebanon in 1983, and so Navy officials decided to follow the Israelis' example. In 1985, the Navy awarded Brunswick a contract to provide 1,000 "ADM-141A Tactical Air Launched Decoys (TALD)".
TALD is an improved version of the Samson. TALD weighs from 180 to 204 kg, depending on payload, and up to six can be carried on a single stores pylon, using a pair of triple ejector racks. It has a glide ratio of better than 10:1, and can achieve ranges of over 100 km when released at altitude.
The Navy bought two versions of TALD: the "RF-TALD", which uses radar enhancement devices to provide radar signatures of different types of attack aircraft or a Tomahawk cruise missile, and the "Chaff-TALD", which carries 36 kg of chaff.
Brunswick supplied the original batch of 1,000 TALDs, but later batches were built by an arrangement between Brunswick and Israeli Military Industries (IMI), and in 1987 McDonnell-Douglas became a second-source manufacturer. A total of about 4,000 TALDs were produced into the early 1990s.
The majority of TALDs was produced in license by IMI, and by 1993 more than 4000 unpowered TALDs had been built for the U.S. Navy. The decoy was used very successfully in the opening stages of Operation Desert Storm (1991), when more than 100 were launched to confuse and dilute Iraqi air defense systems.
The ITALD is similar to TALD (improved TALD), but is fitted with a Teledyne CAE-312 turbofan, which provides 0.78 kN (80 kg / 177 lb) thrust and was developed for a cancelled anti-radar cruise missile named "Tacit Rainbow". ITALD has a ventral intake for the turbofan, and a radar altimeter so it can maintain low-level flight at a specified altitude over the ground.
ITALD has a speed of Mach 0.8 and range of 280 km at altitude. It can be launched from the ground using a RATO booster, as well as air launched. First flights were in 1995, with trials completed in 1996. At that time, Brunswick got out of the defense business, but the project was picked up by IMI. |
