Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 15, 2008 - (Page 44) FA R N B O R O U G H 2 0 0 8 MBDA’s Meteor Makes Moves for Final Firing MBDA is preparing for the final trials that will complete the Meteor BVRAAM (Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile) development program and win final approval from the customer—the UK Ministry of Defence. Beginning early next year two guided firings will be conducted at QinetiQ’s Hebrides Sea Ranges in northwest Scotland to demonstrate the ramjet missile’s maximum range and performance. Then four more live shots will validate the Meteor’s electronic integrity, testing its seeker, data link and onboard electronics against jamming. Flight trials will be carried out by a QinetiQoperated Tornado F.Mk 3, specially modified to launch and control the Meteor. In 2010 MBDA will hand the missile over for three crucial customer evaluation trials—firing the missile in combat conditions—to verify that the weapon performs as promised. The successful completion of the Meteor program will have an importance and an influence that stretches far beyond MBDA. The longrange reach that the new AAM provides for future combat is becoming a key discriminator between the aircraft that have it and those that don’t. The Meteor will arm the European trio of Dassault’s Rafale, Eurofighter’s Typhoon and Saab’s Gripen. Access to Meteor draws a very clear line between these aircraft and U.S. rivals including the F-22 Raptor and F-35 JSF which still rely solely on the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The Meteor now out-ranges the AMRAAM by a factor of 5-to-1. Meteor has demonstrated impressive performance in testing. Indeed, the limits on European range space mean that it’s not always possible to push the Meteor to its maximum capability. This is one reason why testing has moved from the Swedish Defence Material Administration range at RFN Vidsel to the Scottish Hebrides. Show News, “That’s the great beauty of testing Another factor was the British government’s over land. With ALD1 we could retrieve the misunwillingness to see so much essential work con- sile, and very quickly we knew what had gone ducted by the Gripen and Saab Aerosystems, and wrong and how to fix it. If the pieces had gone so for ‘contractual reaAn MBDA Meteor-armed sons’ the program has Gripen fighter. been brought home. The Gripen has been the sole test platform for Meteor development firings to date. Meteor flight trials will be conducted by QinetiQ beginning next year. All but one of the five Meteor launches have taken place in Sweden. This proved to be an unexpected benefit when the first air-launched demonstrator missile (ALD1) suffered an electronics problem during its May 2006 test and the ramjet motor failed to ignite. The missile was intentionally broken up over the range and the pieces recovered. One program official told down in the sea, fixing things would have taken a lot longer and we’d never really have been 100% sure we’d caught everything.” Now that testing has moved full-time to the Hebrides, the sea range there brings some new considerations. Show News was told, “For the CD1 test (the first control and dispersion test) the missile was still travelling at Mach 2.2 at an altitude of 7,000 m when we had to break it up [by command destruct]. Even with the ramjet ‘detuned’ a bit, we were running out of space. The range limits were extended nearly as far as Ireland that day, but it still wasn’t enough.” One future option for the Meteor might be a return to Sweden to use the extended airspace offered by the NEAT test range. NEAT combines RFN Vidsel with the Swedish Space Corporation’s Esrange facility at Kiruna, with a bridging area between the two. This provides an unrestricted range space of over 20,000 km2, more than three times that of Vidsel. —Robert Hewson Aermacchi Is 95 Years Old Alenia Aermacchi celebrated its 95th birthday on May 1. Founded by Italian businessman Giulio Macchi, whose family owned the Fratelli Macchi coachworks, and the French company Nieuport, it was known back in 1913 as Societa Anonima Nieuport-Macchi. The first Nieuport-Macchi airplane was built in the coachworks, designed to meet Italy’s Aviation Batallion’s requirements. Although Nieuport is long gone, Aermacchi continues as an aircraft manufacturer as part of Alenia Aeronautica. Its very latest airplane, the red-painted first pre-series M-346 advanced jet trainer, flew on July 8 and is here at the show. 44 95 years of Aermacchi: 1913’s Nieuport-Macchi and today’s M-346 trainer (which may be seen here). July 15, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://F.Mk http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.