Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
I would work from the assumption that this weapon would not only be feasible but desirable, and then ask myself 'why?' it would be so. I take this approach for two reasons. One, my experience is that so many good designs don't ever get past the initial concept phase these days, I consider any that get into 'mockup for trade show phase' must have some attraction. Two, my 'detailed' knowledge on A2A weapon state-of-the-art is stale enough that I assume someone has added a twist since I last "did" Missile G&C work before moving to launch platforms.
So when my attention was drawn to this development I did what I always do when I have to bridge a gap in my knowledge. Hit the relevant technical journals and archives. For example, I found the 'rocket motor' world had opened up quite a bit in the last ten years and there was no way I could make any reasonable assumption as to anything beyond using an AMRAAM-like setup for parametric comparison with the AMRAAM. In my parametric comparison I found it helpful to assume technology 'at least as good' where I did not have evidence of something more advanced. But as you note, the 'control' of the system is completely unlike anything else in the A2A world, so I focused my follow-on research on guidance laws and control schemes. In the former, I found in the IEEE archives how far we've moved beyond proportional navigation (PN). The advances in the last 20 years is staggering, and while I don't believe in 'AI' (like Roger Penrose, I say define intelligence first, then maybe we can talk), the potential efficacy of modern control laws (increased control logic variability by conditions and algorithms, some employing advanced 'predictive' logic) hardly resemble anything in the AIM-7F and earlier generations.
There was one paper of particular interest in the AIAA archives though that dealt with mixed reaction and control surface control. It was by some Raytheon guys (seems only LM and RTN are in the US missile business) titled: "Dynamic Control Allocation of a Missile with Tails and Reaction Jets." AIAA 007-6671
Quote from the intro:
Both fin and jet control sets provide for roll, pitch and yaw control independently. Whereas the fin control authority is dependent upon dynamic pressure, reaction jet control authority is relatively constant across a dynamic pressure envelope. This implies that at low Mach or high altitude, reaction jet control is a premium for maneuverability. Furthermore, valve dynamics for reaction jet actuators may be significantly faster than motor dynamics for fin actuators; thus, jets may permit faster missile time constants. Reaction jets also provide high angle of attack control where aerodynamic control may be difficult to design due to highly nonlinear and/or chaotic airflow. Effector sets not collocated and restricted to the tail provide even more versatility by allowing independent control of forces and moments when the effectors straddle the missile airframe center of gravity. In such a case, accelerations can be obtained with the absence of nonminimum phase responses and, indeed, without actively inducing high rotational rates. The value of dual control on a missile are numerous and nontrivial
I'm thinking LM was on to the same idea for pretty much the same reasons
Aug 30, 2013, 1:23:00 AM
Posted to The Mysterious LM 'CUDA' Missile"...