BRU-46 Bomb Rack Unit
BRU-47 Bomb Rack Unit
The BRU 46 and BRU 47 Bomb Rack Units / Bomb Release Units were designed for use on the F-15E. Each aircraft utilizes 9 BRU 47's and 6 BRU 46's for a total of 15 bomb racks per aircraft. The BRU 46 and 47 design permits faster and easier store loading and reduced maintenance and cleaning. A number of foreign air forces have selected these units with more pending. On 07 July EDO Corporation announced that it has been awarded two ceiling price contracts, totaling $8.7 million, for BRU-46/A and BRU-47/A Bomb Release Units (BRUs) from McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. The BRUs will be used on the McDonnell Douglas F-15E FY 1998 aircraft, to be delivered to the Air Force as a follow-on to FY 1997 and as spares. The BRUs are manufactured in College Point, New York by EDO’s Marine and Aircraft Systems business unit. Delivery under these contracts will start in February, 1999 and extend well into the year 2000 bringing the overall total number of these BRUs produced to over 4800.
On the new F-22 Raptor a BRU-47/A rack is used on each pylon to hold the external tanks. And the GBU-32 JDAM is carried on the Air Force's standard BRU-46/A bomb rack. There are no plans to carry JDAM externally on F-22, and the BRU-47 will only be used to hold the external fuel tanks.
Sources and Resources
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/bru-46.htm
Maintained by Robert Sherman
Originally created by John Pike
Updated Saturday, January 09, 1999 10:27:01 AM