Homebuild Cruise missiles

!*CLARIFICATION FOR DRAMA QUEENS: For use by US forces against the enemies of World Peace*!

Ok, firstly I am not suggesting anyone actually builds a cruise missile, for obvious legal reasons. It's just the technology involved that tiggles my curiosity.

Apparently the Tomahawk cruise missile costs over $1m each. That's an awful lot of money.

If you could build a cruise missile with a unit cost of say $10k, that means you could launch hundreds more of them at the enemy.

So the challenge is, what technology and design choices could be used to make a super-cheap cruise missile capable of hitting a target say 500km away from the launch pad with a reasonable degree of accuracy?












[edit on 9-3-2008 by planeman]

I' d tell you the exact specfications for a $346 cruise missle but the Homeland Security Alert just went off on my computer.

Good luck getting info on this topic.

Yeah...

You are freaking me out. I had to even wonder if I wanted to click on a thread with this title. Given your topic, Avatar and screenname, I am going to assume this is just one of several questionable posts lately meant to draw negaitive attention to ATS. Try not to ruin it for the rest of us.

Mr. NSA guy, I tried to tell him he was pushing the envelope...

reply to post by planeman

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I am curious: what locations are "say 500 kms" from you? I mean, i can understand harmless hobby with rockets that go up to reach the height, but one that deals with range?
We have too much military cruise rockets in the world, why civilians will start adding to that number?
BTW, google announced 30 mlns $ to any private organisation which lands a robo-car on moon. More profit and more fun then to build cruise missiles, i think.

Actually in terms of warfare the unit cost of the Tomahawk is pretty cheap considering what you get.

The issue with your spects in one of range. To get any sort of meaningfull range, the bigger the cruise missile would need to be thus driving up cost.

Reminds me of the time the guy was putting up the recipe for Thermite. That thread was closed, this one should be too.

It's OK to talk about cruise missiles, it's not OK to teach kids how to build them. We have many people who visit this site that may follow the directions.

You want to build a cruise missile you need to go to KillersrUs.com.

It's not my call, but this thread should hit the trash bin quick.

Lol @ the reaction. I am NOT suggesting anyone builds these things, I'm more interesting in guidance and airframe/powerplant issues. Strikes me that everything except the payload could be done cheaper than say the Tomahawk.

Have a look at my post history before casting childish assertions please.

How big is your payload?

That answer will help define your airframe and the power-plant you'll need.


Then you have to take into consideration how much fuel you'll have to store for the flight.


Tricky part is control avionics. automomous is best, but difficult and expensive: unless you're a programing genius.

Direct, fly-by-wire might be possible, but you'd have to fly high enough to avoid the need for quick manouvers.

Of course, flying high puts you on everybody's radar.


You will at least need a good GPS system, likely linked to a real-time topographical mapping system.


Speed is another consideration.

Commercially available GPS systems cut transmitting at speeds of 600 MPH and above, I beleive, so you'll have to fly slow as well; unless you want to risk losing your bird.


Does any of this sound like "TARGET" to you, yet?


P.S.: None of the above information is in any way classified, or even sensitive. In fact, it's just common sense.

Of course, building your own cruise missle may be considered a sure indication that you are seriously lacking in the aforementioned quality

lol, at least someone is on the right wavelength.

Most cruise missiles have a payload of 500kg, but 100kg is probably enough to be 'useful'. To put that in perspective, a medium sized UAV like Hermes-450 has a payload of about 150kg.

That means the missile could conceivably use a piston engine. What about a pulse-jet, how expensive/efficient are they?

A few design thoughts.

Single piece non-tapered wing made of wood for minimum build costs. V-tail for same reasons.

Pulse jet engine.

Multiple 'webcam' cameras for location recognition software (combined with GPS for general location). If the enemy country has an intact mobile phone network you could try using the signals for triangulation, and navigate that way?

Wasn't there a bloke in Australia/New Zealand a few years back that claimed he was able to build a cruise missile for only a few hundred dollars? iirc he was forced to hand over the plans ect after the US government pressured his government to stop him?

www.theage.com.au...

Planeman it has as solidshot eluded, already been done and yes it was a guy in New Zealand. Here is the link. For those who want to take a look. And for the record he was doing it for five thousand bucks. He got stomped on by the NZ Govt after the US began whining about it.

The irony of the worlds foremost producer/user of cruise missiles complaining about this hasnt escaped many of us.

LEE.

[edit on 10-3-2008 by thebozeian]

500 km up into space? What would be the cheapest way to put 1 Killo on the moon? we could with the Lunar X Prize with that

I think the biggest hurdle to building a really cheap cruise missile with that kind of range would be the type of fuel. Youd need something cheap that burned for a long time.

Thank god im in a warehouse where guys in suits and sunglasses would stand out

Bruce Simpson.....the pulse jet man! He's been on scrapheap challenge over here, jet powered go-karts! The guys a legend in my book!

His proposal for a cruise missile was based around his x-jet, advanced pulse jet engine. The x-jet website has not been updated for years, much to my disappointment as an avid follower of it's development. Either the technology didn't work, or someone/some company has paid Bruce for the rights to it?

Basically a small missile could be created using a traditional pulse jet, or several of them! Remember the Germans managed it in the 1940's with the Doodlebugso I'm sure it's even more possible now.

I don't think low height terrain hugging would be a problem, a [url=]laser range finder costs just £25, all you need to be able to do is write an inteface between that and a control servo to adjust altitude.
Inertial navigation could be used or GPS, again this would output to the servos for guidance.

Fuel would be petrol or LPG.

The german v-1 carried a warhead slightly under 2000 lbs!

I think this would be a really interesting project, so long as the warhead is not added I can't see any problem with building one as a challenge! Obviously sticking explosives on the end would be idiotic, but the concept could be proven using a camera as a payload?

Cheers

Robbie

Routes of cruise missile are pre-planned anyway, so the route would avoid any need for a sudden change in altitude. An emebbed microcontroller (cheap enough these days) would handle the GPS and laser ranger. If it needs a gyro they cheap as well (there one in the wii controller, and a microcontroller and ir camera would you believe).

The hardest part will be the engine, what does a williams F107 cost anyway.

Routes of cruise missile are pre-planned anyway, so the route would avoid any need for a sudden change in altitude. An emebbed microcontroller (cheap enough these days) would handle the GPS and laser ranger. If it needs a gyro they cheap as well (there one in the wii controller, and a microcontroller and ir camera would you believe).

The hardest part will be the engine, what does a williams F107 cost anyway.

Routes of cruise missile are pre-planned anyway, so the route would avoid any need for a sudden change in altitude. An emebbed microcontroller (cheap enough these days) would handle the GPS and laser ranger. If it needs a gyro they cheap as well (there one in the wii controller, and a microcontroller and ir camera would you believe).

The hardest part will be the engine, what does a williams F107 cost anyway.

Anyone want to partner up for this landing something on the moon thing for 30 mil? I have no expertise or experience . . . but I need some $$

[edit on 10/3/2008 by xxpigxx]

figure out how to remove the explosive fuel as propellent an you just cut most of your costs.....

problem is what else to use to slingshot your projectile 500km an keep it on target.....

we need to find out other ways without the jetfuel....