As a longer-reaching beyond-visual-range follow-on to AMRAAM-class medium-range radar-guided air-to-air missiles, continuation of the UK Defense Ministry's nearly $1.5 billion Staff Target (Air) 1239 or BVRAAM program was reaffirmed in the British government's recent strategic defense review.

Following revisions from original invitations to tender (ITT) in December 1995, bid submissions in June 1996, led to $6.3 million MoD project definition and risk-reduction contracts in July 1997.

These were placed with two competing multinational groups, led by MATRA British Aerospace UK and Hughes (now Raytheon) UK, for their respective Meteor BVRAAM and FMRAAM proposals. ITTs followed to both groups last October, for return by late May, and type selection and a development contract are now expected early next year. This is some two years later than originally planned, delaying initial service until 2008.

Meteor is intended to arm Britain's EF 2000, and all four Eurofighter countries are involved in its development, which now offers no prospect of meeting Eurofighter's planned 2004 service entry date. In addition to MATRA BAeD, Alenia Difesa, CASA, GEC-Marconi Radar Defence Systems and DASA's LFK subsidiary, SAAB-Dynamics is also included, to meet Swedish Gripen requirements. If selected for Britain's needs, Meteor therefore has a virtual built-in export market.

Both ST(A) 1239 proposals employ high-energy rocket/ramjet propulsion to achieve required range and high end-game maneuver requirements against high-agility targets, but with several refinements following the risk-reduction contract. In the Meteor, the most obvious is the addition of mid-mounted wings, although it retains the original DASA/Bayern-Chemie solid boron-fuel variable-flow ramjet, and can still utilize standard AMRAAM recessed mountings featured on the Eurofighter. Meteor is claimed to have exceptional kinematic capability, with optimum end-game and far better no-escape zone performance than current medium-range AAMs.

Its mid-course datalink capability and GEC-Marconi MICA 4A-based active-radar seeker give Meteor multi-target engagement and shoot-up/shoot-down performance, plus high ECM resistance. Germany's BGT company is also offering an alternative Ku-band dual-mode active radar seeker with imaging infra-red terminal homing from LFK's A3M technology demonstration rocket/ramjet AAM program. Bonn government funding of some $355 million was sought in June as the possible basis of combining the BVRAAM and A3M into a joint Meteor-based program, with a new digital instead of analog active-radar seeker head.

While Meteor is proposed as an all-European BVRAAM solution, Raytheon's Future Medium-Range AAM claims the benefits of the newest American technologies in this field. Derived from the 345-pound AMRAAM, and embodying its combat-proven experience and reliability background from several thousand production AIM-120s, FMRAAM is being developed jointly with Aerospatiale. The latter's proven integral variable-flow ducted liquid-fuel ramjet supplements AMRAAM's integrated nozzle-less Atlantic Research Corporation/Royal Ordnance solid rocket booster, to achieve velocities over Mach 3.

Initial inertial and micro-computer guidance is followed by mid-course target coordinate datalink updates from the launch aircraft's radar, and terminal homing from the original Hughes AIM-120B active-radar seeker. Thomson-Thorn Missiles Electronics and Diehl GmbH supply FMRAAM's lethality package, comprising warhead and fusing systems, while Shorts Missile Systems would undertake final assembly and checks. Fokker Special Products is also in the FMRAAM team.

With UK component design, development, manufacture and testing, FMRAAM would have more than a 50% British content, plus significant technology transfer. Raytheon's FMRAAM bid also includes a lower-cost extended-range AMRAAM, known as ERAAM, without the ramjet package and capabilities, expected for adoption as an interim solution for UK time-scale requirements. The USAF plans to spend some $60 million in FY2004-05 on AMRAAM kinetic energy enhancements from a five-inch rocket extension, in space made available by avionics miniaturization.

By John Fricker