The Low-Cost Aerial Target, or LOCAT, was designed as an inexpensive target rocket for use by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during the late 1960s. The missile was tested by the U.S. Army, but failed to win a production contract.

Design and development

Developed by

Philco-Ford Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchased by Ford and, from 196 ...

in the late 1960s, the LOCAT rocket was intended to be a high-speed, low-cost expendable target rocket for use in the air defense training role, being used in training exercises for anti-aircraft gunners and missile operators by the U.S. Army.Parsch 2002 Intended to be extremely simple and inexpensive in its construction, the fuselage tube of LOCAT was constructed from rolled paper tubing, while the rocket's stabilising fins were made of molded plastic. An aluminum coating was applied as a surfacing to enhance the rocket's radar signature, and three solid-fuel rockets of the type used by

Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket The Mk 4 Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket (FFAR), also known as "Mighty Mouse", was an unguided rocket used by United States military aircraft. It was 2.75 inches (70 mm) in diameter. Designed as an air-to-air weapon for interceptor aircraft to ...

s were used for propulsion.

Operational history

Forty examples of the LOCAT rocket were ordered by the

during 1969, for operational evaluation to determine if they were suitable in the target-drone role. The contract included an option for ordering production quantities if the rocket was considered acceptable for service. Although LOCAT proved to be reasonably satisfactory in the Army's testing, and it was estimated that, even when compared to reusable drones, LOCAT offered a 50% savings in cost over other methods of target training,''Industrial Research''
Volume 10, p.236
Dun-Donnelley Publishing, 1968. no production contract was placed, the MTR-15 BATS being judged superior for the Army's purposes.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{US military rockets Cold War rockets of the United States Target missiles Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States