<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
Boomer:
"The SR IS hittable, the CIA A-11/12s came back with shrapnel more than once, and with thrust vectoring at high alts and the larger warhead of SAMs it CAN be done."
Sniper:
Prove it.
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<i>How about this concept?</i>
Air-Launched PAC-3 Missile Feasible, Says Senior Lockheed Martin Official (Posted: Tuesday, March 21, 2006)
[Defense Daily, March 21, 2006]
By Michael Sirak
Lockheed Martin's [LMT] engineering analysis to date has shown that launching its Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor off of fighter aircraft to shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles is feasible, a senior company official said yesterday.
"We are convinced that you can do it," Mike Trotsky, vice president of Air and Missile Defense programs at Lockheed Martin, told Defense Daily during a company-sponsored luncheon on March 20.
Lockheed Martin has been studying the viability of the concept, which is dubbed "Air-launched Hit to Kill," for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) (Defense Daily, Oct. 13, 2004). The focus of the activities is on operating the normally ground-launched PAC-3 from Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft, said Trotsky. However, the same principals would apply to the company's other anti-missile interceptor, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile, and potentially to newer fighter aircraft like Lockheed Martin's own F-22 Raptor, he said.
Trotsky said Lockheed Martin is in the process of concluding its fundamental engineering analysis. The company is now defining what the next stage would be in maturing the concept, if government sponsorship continues. A flight demonstration within two to four years could be possible, he said.
The company has begun talks with Air National Guard (ANG) units that fly the F-15 and F-16. The belief, said Trotsky, is that this mission would be a good fit for the ANG units since they fly most of the combat air patrols over the United States. Carrying a PAC-3 or two on their wings would give these aircraft another arrow in their quiver of weapons to protect U.S. skies from airborne threats. Further, the ANG is expected to continue to operate F-15s and F-16s for decades to come even as the newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fill active-duty ranks.
Trotsky said the challenge of the air-launched concept is not so much in firing the PAC-3 from the aircraft, which is actually a straightforward process, but rather in devising the best way in which to tie the aircraft into battlefield data-sharing networks and balance onboard and offboard processing of data so that the pilots can engage the threat missiles in time. This issue would take on even greater importance with the THAAD missile since it has a much greater range than the PAC-3 and would need to be tied with offboard sensors to be utilized fully.
One advantage of firing a PAC-3 off of a fighter is that the velocity of the aircraft when the missile is launched helps to extend the range of the missile significantly, said Trotsky.
Lockheed Martin is developing an enhanced version of the current PAC-3 missile for the Army that it calls the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptor (Defense Daily, July 14, 2003). It is designed to counter more sophisticated threats via a larger, more powerful motor for added thrust, and larger fins and other structural modifications for improved agility.
Trotsky said the MSE missile would be a potent weapon on a fighter for dealing with sophisticated, maneuvering ballistic missiles.
A system-level critical design review of the MSE missile is expected within the next month or two, he said. The MSE missile is expected to enter U.S. inventories around the end of the decade.
Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
Edited by - a10stress on Mar 21 2006 06:38 AM
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