FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1979
1979 - 0028.PDF
26 RIGHT International, 6 January 197 9 resulting AIM-7M will again be for shipboard use only. At present there is no land-based application of Sparrow. As with the British Aerospace Dynamics Sky Flash, Aspide will have the well proven Sparrow airframe but will be a very different animal under the skin. There are no Sparrow components in Aspide, claims Selenia. The Italian designers have tried to introduce improve ments wherever possible to give their missile clear superiority over Sparrow. Range and speed are greater than those of the AIM-7E, and Selenia claims that the air- launched version will have around 30 per cent more range than the US-designed AIM-7F. Much of this improvement results from the use of a closed-loop hydraulic system in place of the open-loop arrangement favoured in the US. As a result, Aspide can be controlled out to ranges at which its US counterpart would have run out of hydraulic fluid, a company engineer tells Flight. As with Sky Flash, new ECM-resistant guidance and fuzing systems have been fitted, along with a monopulse seeker head. Medium-scale- integrated and thin and thick-film hybrid circuits have been widely used. Microwave-integrated-circuit techniques are employed in the balanced mixer and local-oscillator dis tributor, with the appropriate circuitry etched in gold on to an alumina substrate (chemical base). Two sizes of plug-in control surface can be fitted, de pending on whether individual rounds are intended for air or surface launch. The larger pattern will be fitted to Air Force missiles. Rounds for surface launch are fitted with smaller surfaces. At present these are designed to fold within the launcher and have the same aerodynamic shape as US Sea Sparrow wings, although they are con structed differently. Production rounds will probably have a solid pattern of fin instead. Financial restrictions can hit the best run programmes, and Aspide is no exception. Most development work has therefore gone into surface-launch applications, since the Air Force can make do with AIM-7E for the time being. This priority might have been reversed, if most export customers had shown interest in the air-launched weapon rather than naval SAMs. But a steadily expanding order book suggests that Italy got its priorities right. The Italian Navy has yet to place an order for Aspide- equipped Albatros shipborne systems, but the contract may be signed some time this year. First deliveries were made last autumn, probably to the Peruvian or Venezuelan navies, which plan to operate the missile from Lupo-class frigates. Selenia is negotiating with the Egyptian and Greek navies but has yet to sign a contract. Egypt has two Lupos on order, while the Greeks plan to fit Albatros to The Spada ground-to-air missile system for all-weather defence against low-level attacks four Themistokles-class destroyers. Nigeria will fit the weapon to a Blohm und Voss Type 122 frigate, while South Africa may retrofit its three Type 12 President- class vessels. Negotiations are under way with two more customers, one in Europe, the other in South America. Ecuador, the first customer to sign for a lightweight version, will fit the system to corvettes of an unspecified type. Miniaturisation of some components and removal of some sub-units have cut the weight of the fire-control system to around 1,600kg. The four-round ground launcher offers half the weapon capacity of the standard pattern while remaining comparable in size and weight with the twin-40mm naval anti-aircraft gun. With Italy's F-104S squadrons at the end of the queue, Spada will be the next Albatros-equipped weapon to enter service. Each battery will comprise a detection centre and up. to four fire sections each armed with up to three quadruple launchers. Selenia is now building the first battery and expects to deliver this to the IAF in 1980. With any luck, this year's defence budget should release further funds for the air-launched version. If so, test launches could begin within the next twelve months. Although the basic round should have been debugged in the naval role by then, flight tests will be required to check the flutter/vibration characteristics of the Aspide/ F-104S installation, to demonstrate successful separation and to check the effect of motor efflux on the Starfighter fuselage. Compatibility with US-built Sparrows has remained a key requirement throughout. Any F-4 Phantom operator who might prefer the Italian weapon to its US counter part would have to make only minor modifications to his fleet. Despite the obvious attractions of AIM-7F, "European Sparrows" could sell well. Sweden evaluated AIM-7F, Sky Flash and Aspide and considered the Italian weapon to have most technical merit. A Swedish source tells Flight: "We just could not be sure that air-launched Aspide would eventually be produced." Viggen needed a weapon imme diately, so Sweden went shopping in the UK. When Aspide finally takes to the skies in Italian Air Force service, the market for radar-guided medium-range missiles will really hot up. Raytheon is not standing still and has a monopulse-seeker version of Sparrow under de velopment. Italian arms salesmen should have their work cut out, but the world's first land, sea and air-launched multi-role missile deserves a good share of the market.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
