Read the forum code of contact
By: - 4th December 2012 at 20:01 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Has anyone any more to add on this smaller AAM for the F22/F35- designed to fit on an SDB rack....?
I think its safe to assume that right now the only information on the public domain, consists of "its a small, radar guided hitile, meant to be carried in numbers in the internal bay´s of the Raptor and JSF". And thats it (plus a handful of mockup photos).
What i dont get, is "why in the sweet name of John Cleese" did LM choose a radar seeker? :confused:
Hell, wasnt LO/VLO RCS be the "end all be all" of aerospace warfare for the next two decades? And LM chose a radar seeker for a conceptual next generation AAM?!
Confused... I would imagine that they would go for something passive (IIR?) backed up by data links, or some pretty mad mixture of active and passive systems, but no; they went for radar!
RADAR?!!!
Curiously, MBDA went the same route with CAAM!
Am i the only chap that thinks this is a bit odd?
By: - 4th December 2012 at 21:37 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I can't see how anything can come out of it.
First, such a small missile would have a very short range, -cannon range,
and specs of F-35 does not describe a fierce dogfighter.
Secondly, where it would serve a role is missile defense,
either against cruise missiles or F-35 itself, but,
F-35 isn't exactly a good interceptor either, so it should have longer rather than shorter ranged missiles, and whats the point in sending up an aircraft that
has only defense ?
More likely if it is anything, it is a cover, for for example MALD type munition
By: - 4th December 2012 at 22:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
First, such a small missile would have a very short range, -cannon range,
Look again.
It has no warhead, so that space is used for propellant.
It is also a large diameter motor. And large diameter/short length motors can have the same propellant volume as small diameter/long length motors.
You can also expect the motor to use boost>sustain>terminal boost technology, which has been in development for a over a decade.
By: - 4th December 2012 at 22:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
What if this missile has a millimeter wave radar and can also be used for air to ground applications?
Could JSF can go on a mission carrying 12 "long range Hellfires" and defend itself with them if it encounters enemy fighters?
By: - 4th December 2012 at 23:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Look again.It has no warhead, so that space is used for propellant.
It is also a large diameter motor. And large diameter/short length motors can have the same propellant volume as small diameter/long length motors.
You can also expect the motor to use boost>sustain>terminal boost technology, which has been in development for a over a decade.
Even if it had the same propellant volume, it would still have shorter range
due to more drag.
This extra drag also imply the missile will spend all fuel on trying to get speed up,
there won't be fuel for anything else.
To top it off that rack imply tiny fins, meaning abysmal maneuverability
at suboptimal speeds.
ed: yes, long range hellfires is more like it, and vs the occasional chopper,
but why not use SDB then ?
By: - 5th December 2012 at 00:30 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
fins arent that small actually, if i am seeing correctly. plus there is a HUGE (seriously, the biggest i've seen) gas powered vectored steering area toward the nose of the missile.
And the whole missile has a pretty peculiar length to width ratio. If length is similar to SDB, then diameter of the body is something like 135mm. It almost looks like some of those programs from the seventies, with fat body AAMs.
While certainly not in amraam class, i do think it could compete with pre X sidewinder when it comes to range. And if it is truly a dual purpose missile which could take out lots of vehicles (top down attack at mach 3 would probably defeat a good deal of armored IFVs) then i certainly see the point in all of it. It might turn out to be quite an efficient weapon.
By: - 5th December 2012 at 03:45 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I'm beginning to think this is the ARM of F-35,
and possibly an el cheapo JDRADM.
Not particularly fast, but with numbers it can overwhelm
By: - 5th December 2012 at 05:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
What other missile is HTK with nose-mounted maneuver jets? PAC-3
CUDA may also serve as a hard-kill SAM defense.
Also, if they get gel-based fuels stable enough it will have more range per pound of propellant than today's solid propellent.
So many things are going to change between now and 2020 (the earliest I see this in use) that any serious speculation is a long way off.
Heck, I'll throw in MMW AESA just to get things going :)
btw, Does anyone have a cutaway showing the AIM-125C5 or newer that has the new motor and reduced electronics?
By: - 5th December 2012 at 06:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Tell me more about the gel-based fuel please.
And generally i'm all for miniaturization of munition
By: - 5th December 2012 at 06:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
To put in the simplest terms, liquid fuels have better specific impulse (less fuel required per pound of thrust), can be throttled, and can be stopped & started. Problem is they leak due to high corrosion issues. They also have the tendency to go bang at the wrong time.
Solid fuel motors are safe for long term storage but cannot be throttled or restarted.
Gel Fuels try to get the best of both worlds, high impulse and throttle-ability of a liquid and safe storage of a solid.
By: - 5th December 2012 at 06:53 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Do you have a link about it ?
By: - 5th December 2012 at 07:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Defense specific info
http://www.defense-update.com/features/2010/april/gel_rocket_24042010.html
Google search:
By: - 5th December 2012 at 07:46 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Cheers
By: - 5th December 2012 at 11:55 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Flight Global's take on the news
By: - 6th December 2012 at 03:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Of course, solid-fuel motors CAN be throttled, ala Meteor, although gel-fuel will probably offer better specific impulse...
Some of that advantage of gel fuel would be traded off by probably needing higher end-game energy if it isn't going to have a war-head, but the concept seems valid.
That said, I don't know if US DoD is ready to fund a new missile program when they have Meteor ready to be integrated on F-35,
and the claimed advantage of this missile, being able to carry many more of them, would require PURCHASING many more of them.
By: - 7th December 2012 at 12:25 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That said, I don't know if US DoD is ready to fund a new missile program when they have Meteor ready to be integrated on F-35,
Meteor?!!
Hell no, it has a dreadfull weak point, the "IWNIH" deficiency.
By: - 8th December 2012 at 02:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The missiles looks tiny the small frame means it'll probably carry less fuel and a shorter range unless it is using a more radical approach to the propulsion.
But from the info that was given for the time being it appears to be somewhat like an Air-Air version of dart missile the UK Starstreak comes to mind.
By: - 8th December 2012 at 06:46 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
When looking at Cuda pictures, understand what you are looking at and do some elementary fanboy reverse engineering.
Air-to-air missiles are composed of 6 sub-assemblies:
- Guidance electronics, which includes the seeker
- Battery
- Warhead, which includes a safe & arm device and proximity fuze
- Rocket motor
- Flight controls, which includes fins and fin actuators
- Structure
Each of those sub-assemblies has a weight and volume associated with it.
If one of those sub-assemblies were to disappear (#3), its weight and volume could be allocated to another sub-assembly (#4).
We know from the pictures that Cuda is launched from a BRU-61, which supports ripple launch of four 250 pound smart weapons. Cuda is similar in length to GBU-39 and appears to be similar to (or maybe a little larger in diameter than) GBU-39. So we can speculate that Cuda is a 250 pound missile.
Now compare Cuda with MBDA's Mica.
How much does Mica weigh? [112 kg or 250 pounds]
And what is Mica's claimed range? [80 km or 50 miles]
And could a short, fat Cuda have range similar to Mica, especially since Cuda carries more propellant in place of a warhead? [IMO, yes]
By: - 8th December 2012 at 11:01 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
amraam's motor is some 1,6 meters long, according to cutouts of the missile. C5 and above version have that lengthened to 1,75 meters. fuze and warhead take 15-16 cm of length. Whole front section - the radome, radar, batteries, electronics, etc took some 1,45 meters in A model. By C5 that was shrunk to 1,3 meters and reporedly by D model (which has even larger motor area) that was further shrunk down to some 1,15-1,2 meters.
Judging by the images, diameter of cuda doesnt exceed 135mm. That is less that amraam's but we could imagine electronics are a bit worse or there was some further minituarization. Whatever it is, it doesn't look there is more than some 0,8 meters left for engine. perhaps a full meter but that would requiore the missile to be 2,2 meters long. it certainly doesnt look that way in the images where two are fit into f35s bay.
while cuda is certainly not point defense missile, the volume of the rocket motor is not likely to exceed 0.022 cubic meters but may be 0.017 cubic meters if it is 80 cm long. amraam A seems to have 0.034 cubic meters, amraam C5 around 0.37 m3, and amraam D around 0.39 m3.
sidewinder M, on the other hand, seems to have around 0.016 cubic meters of engine area, according to cutout images.
Cuda has more than sidewinder to add drag, but less induced drag from fins... It's total drag might be somewhere between M and X version. All in all, depending on how large that motor is, I guesstimate its range might be between 25-40 km.
By: - 8th December 2012 at 14:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
With the existing problems of developing the tri head seeker how can a miniature AAM missile be developed ? Just marketing gimmick of companies.
Posts: 4,619
By: mrmalaya - 4th December 2012 at 16:41
Has anyone any more to add on this smaller AAM for the F22/F35- designed to fit on an SDB rack....?
http://theaviationist.com/2012/11/30/cuda/#.UL4mlO-IqBo