Five seconds before launch the Hawk BCC directed the missile to point
from "boresighted" to "predicted intercept point." With QF-80 drones
incoming at low altitude, the missile moved on the launcher from
almost level to a fairly steep angle, depending upon distance to
intercept. Typically the Hawk flew very UP during most or all the
boost phase, then the elevons redirected the rocket usually downward.
The flight trajectories were very much like a hawk predator, diving in
from high above the prey, at ever increasing speed.
Many if not most Hawks killed by impact, and the warhead was not always needed.
On 2/25/21, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 26 Feb 2021, Troy Prideaux wrote:
It depends a lot on what altitude the sustainer is operating at. If the
average operating altitude of the booster is say 5000ft (= 0.83atm) and
the average operating altitude of the sustainer is 22,500ft (=0.41atm)
then you can theoretically operate your chamber at half the pressure
during sustainer operation at no loss of thrust coefficient...
Unfortunately, Hawk had low-level capability, i.e. quite possible for all
of both burns to be at 1atm. (Although in the low-altitude case, where it
didn't have to climb maybe 50,000ft at a steep angle, it might have been
able to accept some performance loss.)
Henry