Air Force Wants Hypersonic Missiles for Stealth Jets

Air Force Wants Hypersonic Missiles for Stealth Jets

www.wired.com

For decades, the military has tried — with little success — to build missiles capable of traveling at breakneck, hypersonic speeds. Missile tests, however, have been uneven, with repeated failures punctuated by the occasional stunning success. Now the Air Force is taking a bigger role by seeking to build another hypersonic missile, this time for its stealth fighter jets.

The Air Force’s desired “High Speed Strike Weapon” would travel at five times the speed of sound or faster, theoretically launching from a stealthy F-22 Raptor jet or a future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and travel

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It seems the Air force wants missiles that move faster then their fighter jets. As I am sure most do move faster, these new hypersonic missiles are the real deal. Quick and very effective apprently.

If it can be done, the weapon will “be representative of an air-breathing hypersonic missile system” that can tough it out in “the most stringent environments presented to us in the next decade,” said Steven Walker, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and engineering, in written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in February.

The Air force is asking for a 150% increase in funding from $6.2 million to a whopping $15.4 million by 2013. That is just friggen crazy. That's a lot of cash money for this new system. Which I am sure though for the Air force will "prove effective".


www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by SloAnPainful


Peanuts compared to the militaries budget as a whole.

reply to post by theconspirator


Oh yeah with all the spending they do too it would seem they have infinite amounts of cash...

Still to me, that's a lot of extra money for some new missiles. But I guess they are going to be put onto stealth fighters so that adds some bang to the buck.

-SAP-

Originally posted by theconspirator
reply to post by SloAnPainful

 

Peanuts compared to the militaries budget as a whole.

I have to agree $15.4 million isn't really that much considering the overall budget. I'd like to know more details. It does sound like a major upgrade in capability.

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by theconspirator
reply to post by SloAnPainful

 

Peanuts compared to the militaries budget as a whole.

I have to agree $15.4 million isn't really that much considering the overall budget. I'd like to know more details. It does sound like a major upgrade in capability.

Keep in mind too though, that is a good chunk of money for a missile that is still being tested and may not even work the way the Air force is hoping. Sure $15 million isn't much to overall spending BUT the missile maybe a complete failure. (I am doubting it will be) I couldn't find if that $15 million is going just to testing or that's the whole package, either way though it is a lot for something that might not work the way they want it to.

-SAP-

if they are implementing plasma control and stealth systems like marabu which is there on kh-90/kh-101,it could increase range and reduce friction.

Yep

15 million is pocket change and a majority of missle systems are out dated they should upgrade them.

I'd like to see the tomahawk's replaced with something that was made in this century.

if they're only chucking 15 mill on the project then i doubt they're looking for something immediately useable but are probably just paying a bunch of geeks to spend time working on getting the theory right and then you'll see the budget climb once they can see an actual practical and works every time missile in the pipeline

Its just your basic scramjet that is boosted intially. NASA did scramjet work with the x-43.

Wait till these get attached to drones. This is the future of warfare.

I think this weapon is undefendable. You cannot defend against such speed.

Originally posted by Maxatoria
if they're only chucking 15 mill on the project then i doubt they're looking for something immediately useable but are probably just paying a bunch of geeks to spend time working on getting the theory right and then you'll see the budget climb once they can see an actual practical and works every time missile in the pipeline

That very well could be. I mean the Army tested it in Nov 2011 and it crashed in the ocean. So they know it works, at least flight pattern wise. However this still have to figure of how exactly to use one of these in a wartime situation.

Imagine flying from L.A. to New York in about 30 minutes. That's roughly eight times the speed of sound. And yesterday, the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command managed to launch a missile that flew at that speed. The test missile was sent from Hawaii to hit a site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific about 2,400 miles away, and within a half hour, the missile struck its target. And the military is hoping to speed it up even more.

Source

After furthur research I figured that $15 million isn't anything for a project of this caliber. So yeah they must be using this small increase for just general testing. The budget will climb though once it is fully operational and will be outfitted on the stealth fighters via mass production.

-SAP-