Ukraine missile/rocket/PGM projects

The availability of AI-25 (regardless of if new production for FP-5 is underway) has been a concern. FirePoint have reportedly got 5 engines that could be used on Flamingo. And it appears a UK made one has been used....anyone want to guess at the 5?

Here's my starter for 5 (in no particular order..)...remember they need to be in a similar ballpark as AI-25, cheap and readily available in numbers....

1 - AI-25 - Obviously
2 - Rolls Royce Viper - Back to its roots as a disposable engine....
3 - Motorlet M701 - A lot of L-29 Delfin built....
4 - General Electric J-85 - As per RR Viper...
5 - Garrett TFE731 - Lot of older biz-jets have been scrapped

Given that only 2 of the above are turbofans with lower fuel consumption could we end up with 2 Flamingo FP-5 variants...turbofan powered for long range strikes and turbojet for medium range?

Possible engines...but probably too big...
- Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour? - A lot of the available ones will be ex-Jag so close to twice the power of AI-25..
- Lycoming LF507

https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_an..._they_could_be_and_why_they_matter-19344.html
 
timmymagic said:
The availability of AI-25 (regardless of if new production for FP-5 is underway) has been a concern. FirePoint have reportedly got 5 engines that could be used on Flamingo. And it appears a UK made one has been used....anyone want to guess at the 5?

Here's my starter for 5 (in no particular order..)...remember they need to be in a similar ballpark as AI-25, cheap and readily available in numbers....

1 - AI-25 - Obviously
2 - Rolls Royce Viper - Back to its roots as a disposable engine....
3 - Motorlet M701 - A lot of L-29 Delfin built....
4 - General Electric J-85 - As per RR Viper...
5 - Garrett TFE731 - Lot of older biz-jets have been scrapped

Given that only 2 of the above are turbofans with lower fuel consumption could we end up with 2 Flamingo FP-5 variants...turbofan powered for long range strikes and turbojet for medium range?

Possible engines...but probably too big...
- Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour? - A lot of the available ones will be ex-Jag so close to twice the power of AI-25..
- Lycoming LF507

https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_an..._they_could_be_and_why_they_matter-19344.html
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F-33, F-44, HF120, PW600 and maybe even TRI-60-30 can do the job (last one does take a toll on range tho).

F-33s where going for iirgc roughly 200 to 500k when i looked it up so while likely not as cheap but mutch more efficient
 
timmymagic said:
The availability of AI-25 (regardless of if new production for FP-5 is underway) has been a concern.
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Isn't fire point looking at making an expendable version of the AI-25 by substituting cheaper alloys for parts made from Titanium and other super-alloys?
 
kqcke for you said:
F-33, F-44, HF120, PW600 and maybe even TRI-60-30 can do the job (last one does take a toll on range tho).

F-33s where going for iirgc roughly 200 to 500k when i looked it up so while likely not as cheap but mutch more efficient
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How many of those will be available though, enough to make it worthwhile? And at a reasonable price? FJ-44 could be a good shout though

FJ-33 - Practically all active on Cirrus Vision, fairly new production, doubtful many retired out there
FJ-44 - Could be a decent number of these....
HF120 - New production on HondaJet, doubtful many retired out there
PW600 - Can't see too many Phenom, Eclipse or Citation Mustang being retired yet
TRI-60-30 - Think this might be too small for Flamingo, could be produced though....but won't be cheap and I suspect very limited numbers

Thinking about it.....CJ610 (effectively civilian J85) from Learjet's and Aero Commander's could have decent numbers
 
I wonder if Firepoint might approach General Electric for a deal to licence produce the J-85?
 
timmymagic said:
How many of those will be available though, enough to make it worthwhile? And at a reasonable price? FJ-44 could be a good shout though
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Economics should be secondary for quantity
timmymagic said:
FJ-33 - Practically all active on Cirrus Vision, fairly new production, doubtful many retired out there
FJ-44 - Could be a decent number of these....
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Like the FJ-33 the whole family has some numbers on the used markets. They wont WE as cheap as an AI-25 but if they develop a relative open design this would add a large quantity of possible engines + these are also still in production.
timmymagic said:
HF120 - New production on HondaJet, doubtful many retired out there
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Probaly the most limited engine (in numbers).
timmymagic said:
PW600 - Can't see too many Phenom, Eclipse or Citation Mustang being retired yet
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One could look at production by MTU tho. Maybe a *cheaped out* version with reduced life as we don't need it. This could give another stable dozen engine production.
timmymagic said:
TRI-60-30 - Think this might be too small for Flamingo, could be produced though....but won't be cheap and I suspect very limited numbers
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Its Maximum thrust is almost the same as the AI-25 dry thrust + we also have a quite large reduction in drag + weight at the cost of total maximum thrust and spfc
timmymagic said:
Thinking about it.....CJ610 (effectively civilian J85) from Learjet's and Aero Commander's could have decent numbers
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Maybe yeah
 
So apparently France had 176 Alpha-Jet, 12 have been sold, ~20 destroyed and ~50 will remain in service for now.
That leaves ~90 aircraft or double the amount of engines potentially available ?
 
Titus K said:
No idea but there are still a number of Alphajet in service being phased out
What happened to the German ones ?
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50 went to Portugal, 25 where sold to Thailand and another 12 where obtained by the british Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. There also some crashes and museum pieces and crashes so pretty mutch everyone is gone
 
timmymagic said:
Last J85 was made 36 years ago...
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The last J-85 was produced in 1990? I'm surprised as I was under the impression production ended in the early 1980s. Anyway I wonder if GE preserved the production jigs and tooling or if they scrapped and recycled them? If the latter well if a licence-production deal is made GE could design and build new jigs and tooling taking into account the advances in production techniques in the last 36 years.​
 
timmymagic said:
- Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour? - A lot of the available ones will be ex-Jag so close to twice the power of AI-25..
Click to expand...

Just to add on this...I don't think Adour would be viable. There won't be many Hawk engines that haven't been snapped up already to keep existing fleets going....and I suspect most of the Jag spares have gone to India to keep their fleet running.
 
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NMaude said:
The last J-85 was produced in 1990? I'm surprised as I was under the impression production ended in the early 1980s. Anyway I wonder if GE preserved the production jigs and tooling or if they scrapped and recycled them? If the latter well if a licence-production deal is made GE could design and build new jigs and tooling taking into account the advances in production techniques in the last 36 years.​
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Sorry I mis-typed....its actually 38 years, 1988, though the last few years will have been very low rate production of complete engines (incredibly the last F-5 was produced in 1987, quite surprised to find that out). The CJ610 civil derivative will have stopped full engine production at the latest in the early 80's.
 
NMaude said:
The last J-85 was produced in 1990? I'm surprised as I was under the impression production ended in the early 1980s. Anyway I wonder if GE preserved the production jigs and tooling or if they scrapped and recycled them? If the latter well if a licence-production deal is made GE could design and build new jigs and tooling taking into account the advances in production techniques in the last 36 years.​
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There are still quite a few in service around the world and companies providing ongoing MRO services which means spares.
 
An improved SA-23 with US help? That will be interesting to see how it performs against Russian missiles.
 
It would appear that Ukraine may be able to put the FP-7.X ABM into production quite soon:

Alternative to Patriots: Ukraine wants to roll out new missiles within weeks

A Ukrainian-European defense venture to deliver an anti-ballistic air-defense system has completed its first stage and could launch mass production by the end of this month, the missile’s producer has said.

fot. TVP
EWAN JONES
Edited by: Piotr Kononczuk
07.08.2026, 20:38
The project aims to deliver a surface-to-air missile system to counter ballistic threats. Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images

"First milestone complete," Ukrainian arms manufacturer Fire Point posted on the X platform on Thursday.

It added that the new FP-7X interceptor missile "could enter mass production as early as August, once Fire Point receives German-made infrared seekers from Diehl Defence."

The project, called Freyja and announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July following the creation of a pan-European anti-ballistic missile initiative, brings together major European defense firms including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and Saab.​
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Once this missile is combat proven I wonder if the US DoD will approach Ukraine purchase some of these ABMs? And if that happens I wonder what its tri-services designation would be?
 
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Wes O'Donnell has a video out about the Freyja aka FP-7.X:


Ukraine and nine European partners: Sweden, Germany, France, and the UK among them, just launched Freyja, a $700,000 interceptor built to solve NATO's Air Defense shortage without leaning harder on the American Patriot missile. In this video I break down the Military Technology behind both systems component by component, and explain the Geopolitics and NATO alliance shift this nine-country coalition actually represents.​
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Patriot's PAC-3 MSE costs up to $5.3 million a round and hits its target through direct body-to-body contact, with three decades of combat-proven precision behind it. Freyja is targeting a fraction of that cost, built from parts sourced directly from Diehl, Saab, Thales, Hensoldt, and Kongsberg, the same manufacturer tier already running combat-proven systems in Ukrainian skies. I compare hit mechanism, sensor architecture, cost per round, production rate, and combat maturity side by side, then explain why the "who wins" framing everyone's using for this story, including the framing I opened this video with, is asking the wrong question entirely. These two systems aren't competitors... They're complimentary!

Chapters:​
00:00 - The Wrong Fight: Mis-framing Patriot vs Freya
00:23 - Freya's European Component Origins and Lower Cost
01:08 - Changing the Paradigm: Patriot No Longer Sole Option
02:10 - Parallel Architectures: Patriot's Costly Body to Body Interceptor
04:07 - Freya's Design, Components, and Performance Overview
05:47 - Side-by-Side Comparison: Hit Mechanism to Cost
07:29 - Freya's Production Scale and Practical Value
08:17 - Hit Chain Emphasis: Radar Integration Determines Success
09:08 - Cost Targets, Timelines, and Complementary Roles of Freya
10:55 - European SAMP‑T and Aster Licensing Context
12:22 - Global Ballistic Missile Defense Systems Unavailable to Ukraine
14:43 - Industrial Philosophies and Strategic Approaches in Ukraine
15:32 - Ukraine as Proving Ground for Competing Interceptors
17:22 - Channel Closing Remarks and Support Appeal
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Video Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...CrPPo3IvP4f_h4/edit?usp=sharing&v=PrxtMU585B8
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#Ukraine #NATO #Freyja #Geopolitics #militarytechnology #Sweden #Germany #France #UK #AirDefense #ukrainewar
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It will be interesting to see the FP-7.X go into mass-production.
 
NMaude said:
Isn't fire point looking at making an expendable version of the AI-25 by substituting cheaper alloys for parts made from Titanium and other super-alloys?
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Sure and magical fairy dust sprinkled over it makes it happen, They have no capacity to make anything as complex as a Al-25 turbine , engine , this was always about pulling some from scrap heap and giving them some TLC for a single flight , turns out there are no Al-25 angines in working order just lying around .
 
Mr.T said:
They have no capacity to make anything as complex as a Al-25 turbine
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And yet the Al-25 is originally created by Ivchenko-Progress ZMKB, and is still produced, I believe, by Motor Sich, both of which a Ukrainian entities. Also, over 9000 have been produced over the years and I expect there have been a lot of effort to source some of those.
 
GTX said:
And yet the Al-25 is originally created by Ivchenko-Progress ZMKB, and is still produced, I believe, by Motor Sich, both of which a Ukrainian entities. Also, over 9000 have been produced over the years and I expect there have been a lot of effort to source some of those.
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Ok Ukraine = Wakanda Fire Point was a casting couch company thet mostly engaged in money laundering and its owner is hiding in Israel, Flamingo is bought British design , lets just say they are not capable of making engines ever. there is barely anything Ukrainian on flamingo.

Motor Sich made these engines , but is not making them any more Motor Sich is practicaly on front lines almost withing artilery shot ,doubt it still has working capacity left , if it had Russians would have razed the factory couple of times over .

If they had available engines they would not be picking trough scrap heaps in the west for alternatives. I am quite certain even these they are using now are being sourced outside Ukraine.

Buying new engines kind defeats the whole cost factor , suddenly you end up with a one way missile and a million dolar engine

Which looks like it will be happening any way french electronics and western engines might make it as expensive as Tomahawks and likes . End of the day not much Ukrainian know how in it , if now even the engine would be western. Design bought in the west, electronics and guidance bought in the west , engine bought in the west , money given from the west .............. not much ukrainian about it.
 
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Mr.T said:
Flamingo is bought British design
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You're thinkings its the 'Milanion FP-5' shown at IDEX 25 right?

https://www.armyrecognition.com/arc...-magia-swarm-intelligence-system-at-idex-2025

Congratulations then....you've fallen for an obvious misdirection....they were clearly a front for FirePoint....

Because....

No-one in the UK has ever heard of Milanion....

Their registered office in the UK is a Chartered Accountants firm in Hayes, Middlesex...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/6...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

They have accounts with assets of a whole....wait for it....£2,500.....and zero (0) employees....

https://milaniongroup.com/

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12951650

Imagery including the Spanish NTGS Alakran mortar system and a Polish drone called 'Warblefly' from MPS Inntech appears on their website and on a related company....

https://www.ntgs.es/

https://uav.com.pl/en/what-we-do/target-drones

Quite what their relationship, contractual or otherwise, is with those companies is not known....their business appears to be, or at least attempting to be, acting as a middleman for sales to Middle-Eastern or Far-Eastern states... a tale as old as time. They seem to have some sort of licence, at least to market the products...

They claim to have manufacturing facilities in Spain and the UAE....I'd wager that 'their' manufacturing facility in Spain is NTGS's very small factory.....

https://www.google.com/maps/place/N...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
 
Milanion group predates Ukraine war or Fire Point company , it seemed to be an UAE based , was there any misdirection and for what point? who knows ,who cares. Could be one of them startups in permanent fake it till you make it stage.

In any case Flamingo is not some tour de force in terms of engineering given its just a fixed wing drone with tubojet crudely bolted on top.

No where close to complexity legacy cruise missiles ,more like V1
 
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https://twitter.com/x/status/2089326321528672458
View: https://x.com/UKikaski/status/2089326321528672458?s=20

Ukraine built a $48,000 long-range drone after covertly snapping Chinese factory photos, drone has 2,000 km range, 6,000/year are built.
A drone that destroyed a Tupolev Tu-95MS strategic bomber at Russia's Engels-2 air base last month turns out to be a MICH 2000, a reverse-engineered copy of a Chinese aircraft Beijing refused to sell to Ukraine, according to a factory report from defense outlet Oboronka. Built by an unnamed manufacturer exclusively for the SBU's 'Alpha' special operations center, the flying-wing drone carries up to a 60 kg warhead as far as 2,000 km and costs $48,000 in its base configuration, $2,000 less than the Chinese ZTK-150 it was copied from. It’s understood that Ukrainian developers covertly photographed the Chinese production line while attending pilot training there in late 2023.
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https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...-tu-95-bomber-using-48000-chinese-drone-clone

Best image of it:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2089219929073435084
View: https://x.com/LetsArmUKR/status/2089219929073435084?s=20
 
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Ukraine has launched a successful cruise-missile strike against the Progress factory (It builds amongst other things the SL-6 Soyuz launch-rocket) in Samar using FP-5 drone missiles, from Scott Manley:


I've had a lot of questions about this, Ukraine launched cruise missiles which managed to hit the Progress factory in Samara which, among other things, builds the Soyuz rocket.While I don't know the full extent of the damage, I wanted to clarify what we do know and whether this might affect flights to the Space Station
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Trident said:
An AAM variant may be planned (it's called a universal missile), but the specs quoted clearly refer to the SAM version. This is stated outright in the text and deducible from the specs - 30km range would be very disappointing for a 300kg AAM with a measly 25kg warhead! It matches the Russian short-stick 9M96 SAM (40km/333kg/24kg) or Aster 15 (30km/310kg/15kg) quite well though. If they make a long-range variant it'll be interesting to see whether they go the big-stick (9M96D) way or put it on a booster (Aster 30).
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I'd expect a range of around 90-100km for the air-launched version. The fairly accurate rule of thumb is that a missile launched from an aircraft has about 3x the range of that same missile launched from the ground.



NMaude said:
So basically Ukraine now has its' own domestic equivalent of the JDAM-ER munition.
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JDAMs are supposed to be one of the most obvious mods to do to a bomb.

The real question is how exactly the Soviet bombs are put together. Because the Mk80 series has a standard screw thread on the back end for various tail sets. Supersonic low drag fins, Snakeeye or ballute retarded bombs, and then the various Paveway and JDAM kits to attach to the nose and tail. Plus the various nose guidance and fuzing options.

So if the Soviet bombs have similar tail flexibility to the Mk80s, that would make life a lot easier. It's probably a different thread pitch than the 1960s-designed Mk80s, but it'd be trivial to change that thread. Or if the threads are different enough in diameter, make an adapter to fit.



NMaude said:
The last J-85 was produced in 1990? I'm surprised as I was under the impression production ended in the early 1980s. Anyway I wonder if GE preserved the production jigs and tooling or if they scrapped and recycled them? If the latter well if a licence-production deal is made GE could design and build new jigs and tooling taking into account the advances in production techniques in the last 36 years.​
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With the engines still in active use today, I'd assume most of the tooling still exists for the purposes of making spares. Not sure if the final assembly jigs were preserved.
 
NMaude said:
Unlike the Mk-80 series IIRC the Soviet FAB bombs have their tail-assemblies welded onto the bomb's body when they're manufactured.
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Ew. That makes it a lot more complex to install a glide bomb kit, retarded bomb kit, or guidance kit.
 
Scott Kenny said:
That makes it a lot more complex to install a glide bomb kit, retarded bomb kit, or guidance kit.
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It's rather obvious when you look at the UMPK guided glide-bomb kit.
 

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