USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Donald J Carignan

William H Lewis

Anthony P Antonuzzi

A hardened electromechanical switch is disclosed. When appropriate electrical contacts and pick-offs are aligned, four switches close. The possible number of switch combinations selectable are 4095 based upon a base eight counting system. The switch has a counter section and a memory section. The counter section uses an odometer like device based upon octal. Each counter wheel of the counter section has an electrical pick-off that interacts with the memory section. In the memory section, a plurality of octal numbers, four, are entered into and locked thereon such that each counter set disk, four, therein has one octal number thereon. Electrical contacts are placed on the counter set disks of the memory section and these touch the pick-offs of the counter wheels which will simultaneously close on the four contacts of the counter set disk in only one of the 4095 combinations noted above.

Electromechanical switch

A dispenser retains a hermetically sealed metal canister which holds a pyrophoric fluid, radar chaff, other electronic countermeasure materials or a combination thereof for ejection from an aircraft. Several openings in the canister are sealed with Pyrofuze foil material closures and a Pyrofuze wire braid is interconnected between each of the closures and the canister in close proximity to a Pyrofuze delay braid having one end thereof fixedly attached to the canister. A safety tab on one corner of the canister extends downward between the delay braid and the wire braid to prevent cross ignition until the canister is fully ejected from the dispenser. When a gas producing squib on the dispenser is fired, the Pyrofuze delay braid is ignited by the flame front from the squib and the canister is forced from the dispenser causing the safety tab to be automatically removed from the canister. This allows the delay braid to ignite the Pyrofuze wire braid which burns to each of the closures causing them to burn away thereby releasing and igniting the pyrophoric material from the canister.

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Chelmsford, MA, United States of America

Donald J Carignan