| Mission Bays | |
 |
All the sensors and other mission equipment were located in "bays"- separate compartments extending from the nose of the aircraft back to the wing roots. Each bay had an alphabet-letter prefix for ease of discussion and location. The right side of the chine had five large bays (D, L, N, Q and T), and the left side four bays (K, M, P and S) for housing mission equipment. A-Bay was the removable nose section, J-Bay the nose wheel well, and G-Bay the rear cockpit. Directly behind the rear cockpit was C-Bay to house a camera, R-Bay holding all of the radio equipment, E-Bay containing all of the electronic equipment, and H-Bay with air conditioning equipment. |
| To keep high temperatures out of the bays, they were air conditioned and insulated with layers of silicone impregnated fiberglass cloth, precompressed fiberglass slab, and aluminum foil. All of the intelligence sensors inside the bays were of the "remove and replace" type - none permanently stayed aboard the aircraft. These included Panoramic, long-range and infrared cameras, electronic inteligence sensors and side-looking radar. They were truly one of a kind, making them very expensive and required extensive maintenance preparation between each mission. | |
Return to Airplane Arrangement |
|
| © Copyright Richard Graham | |
