RoKAF has selected Meteor Missile for its new KF-X Stealth Fighter. Already Euro Fighter EF-2000, Saab Gripen and French Rafael. Key Points why Meteor is a deadly BVRAAM.
1: A traditional solid rocket fuelled missile will accelerate until the fuel run out gaining as much hight as needed and then use the hight to store energy. But in the final stage it will loose the kinetic energy fast if it need to make any corrections, hence it is “easy” to avoid by a plane that is aware of its presence, have countermeasures and can perform defensive manoeuvre.
2: The major thing that makes the Meteor superior is the propulsion. The Meteor has actually two motors, one traditional solid fuel rocket engine that will kick it up above Mach-3 which is required to ignite and start the RAM-jet engine and the RAM-jet makes a huge difference.
3: A RAM-jet is like a ordinär jet engine except there is no turbin or any moving parts, it is just a hollow tube slowing super sonic air down to sub sonic speed, compressing the air so it can be ignited. In the envelope between Mach-3 and around Mach-6 it can adjust speed, save fuel if necessary to use it in the final stages to keep energy for manoeuvre.
4: The Meteor will at encounter accelerate to max speed and with propulsion be able to manoeuvre with extreme high G turnes wich make it very difficult to a avoid even with jamming and countermeasures. Even if a target plane try to turn, climb and run it will not help.
Due to this the NEZ (No Escape Zone) for the Meteor is 3 times larger than for a traditional MRAAM.
On top of this it has after launch lock possibilities meaning if one plane see a target another can fire the missile, the first plane can take over control and lock the missile on the target after launch. The Meteor is a dealbreaker.
The rocket motor burns for a hell of a lot longer. Solid rocket proporllant consists of fuel to be oxidized and the oxidizer; by using atmospheric oxygen a larger ratio of fuel to oxidizer can be stored. By increasing the burn period the range of the missile is significantly increased. It also increases the distance the missile will fly while under power and thus energy lost during maneuvers can be recovered; in other words the range at which a target is subject to the maximum kinematic abilities of the missile are significantly increased.
It uses a sophisticated ram-jet engine rather than a rocket engine — giving it outstanding range & very high energies at great range. It also has very advanced multi-mode targeting capability & high ECM resistance.
No one knows until tested in real life. But Meteor is a new development where almost everything is said to be state of the art. Range in excess of 100 km, with a planned ballistic trajectory, probably much more, more than 300 km. Control system onboard which can get new input data on its way to alter target, stealth sort of capability, etc. And fast. really fast.
0 Comments