Prototype Demonstrator of Afterburner/Ramburner Implementation on a Small COTS Turbojet for Attritable/Reusable Super/Hypersonic Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (A/R UAV) Applications

The United States Air Force (USAF) needs the ability to generate combat power inside growing Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) threat envelopes. To meet this challenge, the Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) and Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology (LCAAT) programs intend to develop a family of low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for use in contested/denied environments where attrition rates for crewed aircraft are unacceptable. A super/hypersonic Attritable/Reusable (A / R) UAV would give the USAF the capability it needs. It requires the use of an afterburning turbojet/fan. There are no attritable, small (less than five hundred lbf dry thrust) afterburning turbojets currently in production. During this Phase II Velontra will design, build and test a Turbine-Based-Combined-Cycle propulsion prototype at Sea-Level-Static Inlet Conditions. They will modify a low-cost, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) turbojet with an afterburner / exhaust nozzle. One of the five Strategic Capabilities outlined by the USAF S&T strategy is “Complexity, Unpredictability, and Mass.”  This requires Velontra to research and develop a propulsion system in a rapid and cost-effective manner. On this Phase II, designing, building, and testing a super/hypersonic system at the size, cost and time suggested, will be a demonstration of Velontra’s proprietary, innovative approach to the aerospace design process.