Prior art methods for releasing weapons from the weapons bay of an aircraft generally provide two hinged doors for releasing the weapons stored on the interior side thereof. While these doors are effective for releasing substantially all, or half, of the weapons simultaneously, they provide no means of selectively releasing one or two weapons at a time. Further, these doors provide the disadvantage of increasing drag upon the aircraft and reducing the stability of the aircraft when the doors are open.
Other prior art methods have proposed a plurality of smaller doors across the weapons bay to allow more selective release of objects. These methods, however, suffer from the disadvantage that the door must be constructed with less than adequate load-bearing capacity. Further, these methods require additional structure intermediate the pairs of doors to support the doors at the hinge line about which they pivot. The additional structure reduces the space available in the weapons bay, thus reducing the number of weapons which can be carried.
Accordingly, there is a desire to provide apparatus for selectively releasing weapons from the weapons bay of an aircraft. Also, there is a desire to provide weapons bay doors which minimize the amount of drag placed on the aircraft when opened. Further, there is a desire to provide weapons bay doors which do not impair the stability of the aircraft when opened.