History
In the 1970s, the Brunswick Corp. developed several unpowered radar decoys including the Samson, which was produced for the Israeli Air Force by Israel Military Industries (IMI) in the early 1980s. The Samson proved highly successful, prompting the US Navy to purchase some 2,000 of them during the mid to late 1980s. The first units entered US service in 1987; in 1985, Brunswick was asked to develop an improved Samson named TALD.
The TALD was an expendable glide vehicle with a square fuselage, flip-out wings, and three tail control surfaces. A digital flight control system could be programmed to conduct various speed or manoeuvering changes during flight. The missile could be launched from 12,200 metres (40,000 ft), at which height it had a range of up to 126 kilometres (78 mi) - a low altitude range reduced this to 26 kilometres (16 mi).
Read more about this topic: ADM-141 TALD
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