Definition
A military unit that operates ground-based radar sites used to track aircraft on simulated bombing runs and electronically score the accuracy of practice weapon releases without the use of live ordnance.
Plain English
A military team on the ground that uses radar to follow military aircraft practicing bomb runs and grade how accurate the simulated drops would have been — no real bombs are used.
Context Anchor
Seen in Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs), military training information, or route planning material that identifies military radar scoring activity.
Derivation
‘Radar’ comes from RAdio Detection And Ranging. ‘Bomb scoring’ is the older Cold War-era practice of grading practice bomb runs electronically rather than dropping live weapons. A ‘squadron’ is a military unit. Together it names the unit that does this radar-based scoring work.
Why Pilots Care
Civilian pilots may share airspace near RBSS sites or routes used by military aircraft running scored practice missions. Knowing what the acronym refers to helps when reading NOTAMs or charts that mention associated training activity.
Intuition Check
RBSS does not automatically mean live bombs are being dropped. It identifies a military radar scoring unit or activity, often connected with training or simulated bombing runs.
Example Sentence 1
The NOTAM referenced an RBSS site associated with the nearby military training route.
Example Sentence 2
After the pass, the crew waited for the RBSS to radio the computed miss distance.