Sometimes you see stuff that makes you sad… not because the thing itself is sad, but because you can’t legally say jack about it. Well, back when I worked at ATK I stumbled across some Powerpoint presentations on a joint ATK/BAE concept, and due to the interesting notations on the pages I felt it safest to not say a thing. BAE patented the concept a few years ago with all manner of nifty diagrams, so.. restriction lifted, I guess.

The concept? Flying ICBM launcher. This is not a new idea… the Skybolt ICBM was flying around under the wings of several bombers back in the 1960’s, and both the Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBMs were proposed to be made air mobile at various times… typically by the relatively simple expedient of carrying them in cargo planes and shoving them out the back door. But what sets this concept apart is that the ICBMs are carried *vertically* in silos, just like on ballistic missile submarines. But here there is no compressed gas charge to blow them out; they come out hot.

The first obvious problem with the concept is that, unlike a submarine, a jet aircraft at 40,000 feet is hardly likely to just stop… thus the missile will have some pretty substantial side forces on it as it comes out, to the tune of a 500+ mile per hour air blast. Anyone who has ever tried to launch a model rocket in a stiff breeze has probably noticed the concept of “tipping force:” when the rocket is only partly exposed, the wind blowing on the front of it tries to blow it over sideways. But BAE seems to think they’ve got the problem licked: by redirecting some of the exhaust gasses into a plume firing out the top of the aircraft and just ahead of the rocket, the air flow should be diverted around the missile long enough for it to clear the silo. A neat idea… I’d love to see some full scale testing!

The second obvious concern is that aircraft skins and structures *really* don’t like having big rocket motors blasting away at them from ranges of a few feet. BAE has a solution to that, too: a short-burn, high-thrust rocket motor capable of chucking the missile into the air, but fast-burning enough so that it burns out before it actually clears the tube. The missile would then coast upwards until it was clear of the aircraft, stage off the booster, then fire up its first *real* stage and continue on its merry way.

BAE suggests that the missiles can be used for a number of roles:

1: micro-satellite launching (but who’d need to ripple-fire dozens of small satellites?)

2: Missile defense

3: Prompt strike.

In the last role, one concept described is a 747 carrying 32 or more missiles, each missile capable of launching a 2000-pound JDAM weapon a range of 500 or more miles.

The patents:

Air based vertical launch ballistic missile defense 7540227

Air-based vertical launch ballistic missile defense 7849778

Thought is given in the patent to angling the tubes forward.

When I saw the presentations at ATK, I was uncertain as to the breakdown of who was to do what. But it now seems pretty clear to me that the idea as a whole was BAE’s, and ATK was pitching rocket concepts to BAE to fit their aircraft boomer. Whether ATK got the job or if it went to someone else, or if the whole idea just dried up and blew away, I have no data. The concept dates back at least 6 years, to 2005 or earlier. It got a smidgeon of press, then pretty much vanished. In all probability it really did vanish. But who knows…

NOTE: If you like aerospace history posts like this, then you’ll go out of your mind when you read Aerospace Projects Review. Go take a look.