Popular Mechanics:
Cruise missiles are about to get a whole lot faster. According to Aviation Week & Space Technology, engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce Liberty Works and Williams International are both developing small turbine engines for a new generation of faster cruise missiles.
How much faster? How about five times faster?
As part of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) supersonic turbine engine for long-range (STELR) program, both are working on compact jet engines that would propel cruise missiles at speeds of up to Mach 3.2, or 2,435 miles an hour.
Such a missile would be as fast as the SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane ever built. The venerable Tomahawk cruise missile, by comparison, is powered by a small turbojet engine that flies at relatively pokey 550 miles an hour.
Cruise missiles are designed to penetrate enemy airspace at very low altitudes—as low as 100 feet—using terrain features such as mountains, hills, and forests to mask their approach. This keeps them out of view of enemy radars, which require a clear line of sight to targets.
Most missiles rely on rocket engines for propulsion, but rocket engines are unsuited for low altitude, terrain-following flight. Instead, cruise missiles are powered by small turbine engines, scaled down versions of the kind that power most aircraft.
While more fuel efficient and better suited to low altitude flight, turbines are slow. The lack of a viable high-speed turbine engine has meant cruise missiles must compromise, trading speed for the ability to hug the ground.
The new generation of engines won’t compromise, allowing a cruise missile to fly both low and fast. It will also almost certainly incorporate stealth technology to reduce the radar signature the enemy does pick up, resulting in a missile that will be difficult to detect and difficult to kill…
