Douglas Barrie/LONDON
THREE ISSUES, two of them involving programmes and the other industrial, will dominate discussions among missile vendors at this year's Farnborough air show: the USA's competition for an AIM-9 Sidewinder replacement; European requirements for a future medium-range air-to-air missile, and the merger of the missile interests of Matra (1/D1) and British Aerospace (4/C6/7).
More than 160,000 AIM-9 Sidewinders have been sold, and the inheritor of this lucrative market is due to be decided by the end of 1996. The US Air Force/Navy Sidewinder replacement programme, dubbed the AIM-9X, is high on the agenda of missile manufacturers.
Hughes (3/A19) and Raytheon (2/A16) are proposing indigenous designs based around the Pentagon-funded Boa and Box-office technology-demonstration programmes, with Hughes also offering a variant of the British Aerospace Dynamics (E1) Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM).
Air-launched test firings of the ASRAAM are under way at Eglin AFB, Florida, and BAe will be aiming to use the Farnborough event to stoke export interest in the missile. The ASRAAM is also being studied independently by the US Department of Defense (DoD) under a Foreign Comparative Test contract to evaluate its ability to meet the AIM-9X requirements.
The AIM-9X competition is also throwing into sharp relief UK political concerns over whether the so-called "two-way street" between the UK and the USA in defence procurement exists: these concerns are also apparent in recent UK procurement decisions.
For its direct ASRAAM bid in the AIM-9X competition, Hughes is offering the ASRAAM P3I. The Hughes/BAe response to the DoD's request for information was submitted at the end of July. It differs from the baseline missile for the Royal Air Force, having been "tailored" to the US operational requirement.
The Hughes/BAe ASRAAM P3I will use a thrust-vectoring nozzle to provide increased agility in extremely short-range missile engagements. It will also have a larger warhead. The RAF baseline missile has as 1.5kg warhead, and is effectively a "hittile".
The US Air Force and US Navy are more conservative in their appraisal of imaging-infra-red seeker accuracy, requiring a more- powerful warhead to maintain lethality, given a limited miss distance. Despite the introduction of thrust-vectoring and a larger warhead, BAe says that, in terms of performance, the ASRAAM P3I suffers only a 5% reduction in range in comparison to the baseline configuration.
The baseline threat which the AIM-9X is designed to outperform will also be on show - Russia's Vympel R-73 (AA-11 Archer.) Whether the design bureau will reveal details of the upgraded R-73, which may carry the designator K-74 (K denoting a missile in development), or about the design of the successor to the Archer family, is not yet known. Bodenseewerk Geraetetechnik (3/D7) will also be pushing the Iris-T short-range AAM, for which the company is the industrial leader.
RIVALS CO-OPERATE
While BAe and Hughes are co-operating for the AIM-9X requirement, they have a more-traditional antipathetic relationship over the future medium-range missile (FMRAAM) requirements of the RAF.
BAe will launch its Meteor at Farnborough. The Meteor is a derivative of its S225X missile designed to meet the FMRAAM requirement. Hughes is offering a derivative of its AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and it is the sole competitor to the BAe-led European consortium.
BAe narrowly averted a division in the European camp. Matra and Daimler-Benz Aerospace had teamed to bid for the RAF FMRAAM competition, with BAe, GEC and Saab jointly proposing the S225X.
BAe's attempt to tie together a single European-led bid for the FMRAAM had become embroiled in its seemingly interminable negotiations with Matra over merging their respective missile divisions.
The emergence of the Matra-DASA bid lent weight to speculation that BAe/Matra negotiations were foundering. A bout of shuttle diplomacy on the part of BAe led to Matra and DASA joining the S225X team.
BAe, teamed with Matra, also competed for the UK's conventional air-launched stand-off-missile (CASOM) requirement. The French Government had linked the winning of this contract to approval of the BAe/Matra tie-up in what became a highly political competition.
BAe and Matra won the RAF's CASOM competition in July against stiff US competition. BAe's Storm Shadow derivative of the Matra Apache is likely to have a high profile at Farnborough, albeit in mock-up form.
Hughes, likely to have learned some salutary lessons from its Air Hawk bid to meet the RAF's CASOM requirement, will have noticed the political tone of the recent spate of UK procurement decisions. It still appears intent, in spite of this, on pursuing its bid for the FMRAAM. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is also keen to maintain a competition for the FMRAAM, to take the opportunity of screwing down the price on what is inevitably going to be an expensive programme.
In the same way that the prize of the AIM-9X has seduced BAe into pursuing the US programme, the FMRAAM offers a similar attraction for Hughes. If it were to win the FMRAAM contest, it would consolidate its position with the AIM-120 as the dominant Western manufacturer in the export market. Hughes could also use its FMRAAM AIM-120 missile as the basis for meeting any future US requirements for an AMRAAM with an improved performance.
In strengthening its credibility as the alternative to the BAe-led bid, Hughes is liable to use the opportunity at Farnborough to talk up the collaborative potential of its offering.
The company is likely to flag the European partners on its bid, which will be led by Hughes UK. Shorts (4/C10) and Thomson-Thorn (3/F3) are believed already to have signed up for the Hughes team, as has France's Aerospatiale (1/C10).
What is at stake for both Hughes and BAe is more than just the UK market for a future active-radar-guided air-to-air missile (AAM). While the RAF is the first European air force to define a requirement for an active radar-guided missile with a performance better than other deployed systems, other European air forces have similar requirements.
Germany and Sweden have emerging requirements with the French Air Force also in the vanguard. If the Meteor consortium wins the RAF FMRAAM competition, it would be well placed to dominate the European market, shutting out Hughes.
NEW DYNAMICS
BAe and Matra may also at Farnborough begin to flesh out details of the structure of the newly created Matra BAe Dynamics.
Given the outcome of the UK Casom competition, there will also be interest in whether Germany will continue to support the DASA KEPD-350 stand-off missile, offered to the UK as its preferred solution for a precision stand-off missile. The German air force has already procured a limited number of Apache anti-runway missiles, and BAe and Matra will probably attempt to persuade the German Government and DASA to consider the merits of a tri-national programme.
The likelihood that Matra BAe Dynamics will form the core around which a pan-European missile house may coalesce adds interest to their merger, which after many delays now seems certain, although the same cannot be said of the Aerospatiale/DASA missile merger. Despite Aerospatiale protestations that the marriage is continuing as expected, there is a growing suspicion that it is perhaps slipping on the list of priorities as rationalisation within the French defence sector takes precedence.
Russian seeker-design house AGAT may turn up with its dual-mode front end for Vympel's R-37 (AA-X-13) long-range successor to the R-33 (AA-9 Amos). Elements of the seeker were shown on an AGAT stand at the Moscow air show in 1995, but they were not identified as being for the R-37 project.
The R-37 has so far only once been photographed, fitted to a prototype MiG-31M Foxhound B at the Russian air force combat test-centre at Ahktubinsk. Although a MiG-31M was shown at Moscow in 1995, its primary missile armament was absent. Whether Vympel will bring the missile to Farnborough remains to be seen.
The appearance of the R-37 seeker at the show would shed light on the future of the missile programme. The Mikoyan MiG-31M is unlikely to enter service because of the parlous state of the Russian armed forces. For the same reason, the R-37 could be cancelled, or may be retrofitted to the Foxhound A, or could be used to equip other aircraft.
It is not known whether Russia's Raduga or Zvezda will display their air-to-surface missiles, and it is uncertain if information will be available about the Raduga Kh-101 and Kh-SD conventional cruise missiles in development.
GEC-Marconi (3/B1) will be majoring on its Brimstone millimetre-wave-guided variant of the Rockwell (2/A34) Hellfire which was selected by the UK MoD in July to meet the RAF's requirement for an advanced air-launched anti-armour weapon. The company will be looking to build on the UK order with exports. Saudi Arabia is considered to be high on the list of potential customers.
Other missile manufacturers, which could spring surprises at Farnborough, include South Africa's Kentron, which is continuing to work on both short- and medium-range AAM projects. Along with its ramjet-powered AAM project, the company is also in the final stages of testing an active-radar-guided medium-range missile.
Israel's Rafael (2B/28) may also provide additional data on its Python 4 short-range AAM.
Source: Flight International