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Subject: Rocket vs Solid Fuel Ramjet in AAMs.
dwightlooi    3/28/2008 11:54:43 AM
There have been a lot of Meteor hype. I think that it'll  help if we simply think of the Meteor as an AMRAAM with an approximately 2.5x better sustainer. That is basically the performance difference. That applies only to the sustainer though, which is ~ 1/3 of the Meteor's Motor Volume. With that comes the ram drag of the intake system, a slightly less efficient booster stage due to the inability to incorporate a proper nozzle and a little bit of wasted space occupied by the interstage valving assembly -- all of which are not present in a pure rocket.

In essence, the same performance as a VFDR (Variable Flow Ducted Rocket; aka Solid Fuel Ramjet) can be achieved if one simply doubles the the sustainer volume of a traditional rocket. This will require that the motor be about 33% longer with the overall dimensions of the missile unchanged. The question really is whether increasing the propellant fraction to this degree is harder or whether implementing a VFDR is harder.



The important thing to understand is that while VFDRs have about 2.5 times the IpSec of a Solid Rocket, only about 1/3 of a VFDR missile's fuel is actually burned in VFDR mode. About 2/3 of it is expended traditionally with the motor functioning as a pure rocket to get the missile to VFDR operating speeds (~Mach 2.5).
 
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Herald12345    Technical question.   4/17/2008 8:24:55 AM
At what altitude do you expect the ramjet to give way to the rocket in terms of A2A missile performance advantage? I would be interested in  seeing your numbers and analysis.

Herald
 
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