MiG-31K carrying Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ALBM (Air-Launched Ballistic Missile) missile (Wikipedia, Kh-47M2 Kinzhal)
Connecting normal jet engines to rocket aircraft is not often mentioned as the way to increase the capacity of the aircraft. That thing can turn into hypersonic aircraft or cruise missiles. So the rocket aircraft will equip with jet engines. The rocket-based hypersonic missiles are maybe already in operational use. Those missiles are using rocket engines for accelerating their speed to highly super- or hypersonic.
The rocket aircraft can work as a hypersonic missile. The most conventional version of hypersonic aircraft has been missing from the great public. The system would have jet engines that it can use for slow-speed flight. When the system requires the maximum speed it just turns to use the rocket engine. The air-launched systems might be regular missiles, which have different flight profiles than usually. The hypersonic missiles don't require a scramjet engine. And the simplest way is to use solid rocket engines.
When we are thinking of the word hypersonic missile, we must understand that this kind of weapon can use traditional rocket engines. And that means the hypersonic missile and especially the HCS (Hypersonic Cruise System) can be the small-size rocket aircraft or something like Pegasus-rocket that is aimed at the target.
The Russian Kh-47 Kinzhal ("dagger") ALBM (Air-Launched Ballistic Missile) missile that is seen under the MiG-31K interceptor is this type of weapon. Wikipedia tells that Kinzhal uses a solid rocket engine. Officially Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile, but it can have different flight profiles.
When that system hits the target, that thing can destroy all kinds of things like ships and hardened bunkers. The HGS (Hypersonic Glide System) is the warhead that looks like a small glider or the spearhead, that can hit the target from different angles than the regular ballistic missile warhead.
One of the versions of the HGS is the aircraft with regular jet engines. And when the system needs maximum speed it just activates the rocket engines. That rocket engine can be the aerospike engine between the jet engines. The aerospike would have troubles in high-altitudes, but at the altitudes, from 1000 to 10 000 meters that thing can work very fine in that kind of mission.
The aerospike engine would work in the low altitudes, and the HGS will cruise to the strike distance from the target, and then it will activate the aerospike system. That thing will give the maximum speed to the target. This is only one version of the hypersonic system.
The system bases the existent technology. And it can be a powerful and dangerous system. For making strikes to the enemy territory. That kind of system is not very hard to make. They are basing normal conventional technology.
()https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-threat-and-proliferation/missile-basics/hypersonic-missiles/
()https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine
()https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_flight
()https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
()https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_Pegasus
Image:()https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal
Comments
Post a Comment