DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINE OF AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY
US DEVELOPING A NEW LONG-RANGE AIR-TO-AIR MISSILE
THE US MILITARY has been quietly working on a new long-range air-to-air missile since at least 2016, budget documents reveal. The Ofice of the Secretary of Defense spent nearly $10 million in 2016 and 2017 developing concepts and technologies for the so-called Long- Range Engagement Weapon (LREW).
‘This project will complete the engineering and design work required to assess a multi-role, longrange interceptor for maintaining air dominance’, according to the military’s 2018 budget proposal. ‘Details of this project are classified.’
Users of the online Secret Projects forum first noticed the LREW line item buried deep inside the nearly thousandpage budget. The new munition’s emergence after at least two years of development helps to explain a longstanding gap in US military capabilities.
Russia and China are both developing air-to-air missiles with ranges in excess of 100 miles. The United States, by contrast, still relies on versions of the 1980s-vintage AIM-120 AMRAAM that reportedly can fly around 90 miles, at best. The US Navy’s F-14 Tomcats carried very-long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, but tho…
