MAS Reaper.

Overview

Reaper or Guided Weapon System (GWS) is a ZMI air-to-air missile system designed by General Designs for Exospheric operations (GDX) and built by Megacity Aerospace Systems. It has been fitted to the Type 99 Interceptor, the Type 55 Multirole Strike Fighter, The Dawnhammer heavy bomber, The Type 1000 Strategic bomber and the JX-32 and JB12 UCAVs. It has also been fitted to the K2 class Zeppelin air defence platform.

Description

Reaper is a single stage, 5.3m long 42 centimetre wide missile weighing 750 kg. It is launched from subsonic platforms using a drop-off solid-fuelled booster that accelerates it to the supersonic speed necessary for the operation of the cruise motor, a MAS kerosene-fuelled “Patrician” ramjet. This gives a cruise speed over Mach 3, and unlike many rocket powered designs the cruise engine burns for the entire flight, giving excellent terminal manoeuvrability at extreme range. It is capable of engaging targets out to at least 50 nautical miles over a wide range of altitudes.

Guidance is by semi-active radar and optronic homing, with targets being identified by radar, thermal and optic properties and or being illuminated by laser or radar from a variety of sources. This allows multiple targets to be engaged simultaneously by the same missile with in-flight changes of designated targets available and or fire and forget capacity. Firing is from a 12 cell trainable launcher that is loaded automatically on the K2 and directly from the ordinance rack in the Type 1000 and Dawnhammer. Unit posses forward and side faceing radar and or lidar sources but is virtually blind in a 38 degreee arc to the rear.

Ordinance:

The Missile has as such no direct active ordinance but rather a kinetic kill vector consisting of a bundle of 12 4 metre long 15mm wide carbon steel penetrator rods which are spread by three 1 kilogram plastique charges set along there length. In flight these rods acts as the missiles main support.

Variants:

The Mark two introduced in 2007 increased range to 65 Nautical miles by increasing fuel injector efficiency.

Specifications:

Launch platform: Aircraft, Zeppelin, Fixed installation
Target: Aircraft, Missiles.
Builders: MAS
Date of design: 2006
Production period: 2006 / 2018
Operators ZMAF
Variants Mk 1, Mk 2
Diameter: 45 cm (body)
Wing span: 9 cm
Length 5.3 metres (6 m with booster)
Weight 750 kg
Propulsion 1 x Ramjet, (1 x solid fuel booster, sub sonic launch platform only)
Steering: Control surfaces, vectored thrust.
Speed Mach 3.1
Range 65 Nautical miles (120 kilometres)
Operational Ceiling: 70,000 Feet (21,336 meters)
Trigger: Proximity fuze
Number built 40,700