Lockheed Martin has selected TRW Aeronautical Systems (Lucas) to provide the weapons bay door drive system for its Joint Strike Fighter engineering and manufacturing development proposal. Using UK-developed rotary drive technology, the system is applied to four weapon bay doors per aircraft. The contact could be worth as much as $600 million to TRW.

Stealthy aircraft such as the JSF place unique demands on weapons bay actuators. Stealth aircraft carry internal weapons, which must be released at any altitude and speed, from high subsonic at low level to supersonic in the case of air-to-air missiles. Because the aircraft is not stealthy when the doors are open, they are designed to open and close in a fraction of a second. Lastly, it is crucial that the doors close precisely and lock firmly in place to maintain the airplane's stealth characteristics.

The TRW drive system consists of hydraulic motors connected to a gearbox and torque shafts to rotary-geared actuators that open the doors.

By Bill Sweetman