Apparatus and method for dispensing incendiary projectiles

摘要

An apparatus and method for dispensing incendiary projectiles is provided. The apparatus includes an injector for injecting the projectiles with a reactant at a dispensing rate, and a controller operable to control the dispensing rate. The controller is operable to control solenoids of a dispenser gate and a shuttle motor, and to prevent jam conditions of the apparatus. The apparatus can detect and automatically correct jam conditions that do occur. The apparatus can count the number of incendiary projectiles dispensed during a current operation and during the lifetime of the apparatus. The apparatus is dimensioned to minimize the number of incendiary projectiles purged from the apparatus after an operator has indicated to stop dispensing.

主权项

1. An apparatus for dispensing from an aircraft projectiles containing incendiary material, the apparatus comprising:
(a) a base adapted to being removably mounted to the aircraft; (b) a chute operable to expel the projectiles to fall away from the aircraft; (c) a hopper operable to store discrete unitary unprimed projectiles; (d) a feed mechanism cooperating with the hopper to extract unprimed projectiles from the hopper and provide a queue of unprimed projectiles; (e) a dispenser gate connected to the feed mechanism, the dispenser gate having one or more gate passages and being operable to open to unblock movement of unprimed projectiles through the gate passages in response to a gate signal; (f) an injector connected to the dispenser gate that receives unprimed projectiles from the dispenser gate and injects the projectiles at a dispensing rate with a reactant to prime the projectiles, and then conveys the primed projectiles to the chute; and (g) a controller operable to provide the gate signal to the dispenser gate and to control the dispensing rate of the injector in response to a desired dispensing rate, and wherein said controller is operable to detect a jammed condition of the apparatus.