Aerodynamic performances of cruise missile flying above local terrain

Cruise missile can be classified as a smart bomb and also Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) due to its ability to move and manoeuvre by itself without a pilot. Cruise missile flies in constant velocity in cruising stage. Malaysia is one of the consumers of cruise missiles that are imported from other nations, which can have distinct geographic factors including their local terrains compared to Malaysia. Some of the aerodynamic performances of missile such as drag and lift coefficients can be affected by the local geographic conditions in Malaysia, which is different from the origin nation. Therefore, a detailed study must be done to get aerodynamic performance of cruise missiles that operate in Malaysia. The effect of aerodynamic angles such as angle of attack and side slip can be used to investigate the aerodynamic performances of cruise missile. Hence, subsonic wind tunnel testings were conducted to obtain the aerodynamic performances of the missile at various angle of attack and sideslip angles. Smoke visualization was also performed to visualize the behaviour of flow separation. The optimum angle of attack found was at (α=21° and side slip, β=10° for optimum pitching and yawing motion of cruise missile.