New Zealand man building cruise missile in garage, posting details on Net
AUCKLAND, June 3 (AFP) – 05:44 GMT – A New Zealand home handyman is building a do-it-yourself cruise missile with legal, off-the-shelf equipment and claims he can do it for under 5,000 US dollars.
But the activities of Bruce Simpson were Tuesday attracting official interest, particularly as he has now test fired several jet engines.
On his website (http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile) Simpson says he was challenged by US military experts over his claim the missile could easily be built.
“So, in order to prove my case, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and build a cruise missile in my own garage, on a budget of just 5,000 US dollars,” the 49-year-old Internet developer says.
“Obviously the goal of this website is not to provide terrorists or other nefarious types with the plans for a working cruise missile but to prove the point that nations need to be prepared for this type of sophisticated attack from within their own borders.”
He said he managed to acquire most of the parts from the online auction house eBay, including a GPS system purchased for 120 US dollars that “was delivered by international airmail in less than a week and passed through customs without any problems.”
The initial procurement is so far the only one of 15 stages of development completed in Simpson’s missile diary.
Simpson told Radio New Zealand it was a crude missile but it was easy enough to make and he expected to have it flying by the end of the month.
“It’s like a small aircraft powered by a jet engine,” he said, which could easily reach a chosen destination up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) away, carrying a 10-kilogram (22-pound) payload.
Authorities were reluctant to comment Tuesday but it was clear they were taken an interest in the project.
The Defence Department would not comment but one official told the New Zealand Herald that Simpson’s website could be violating the international Missile Technology Control Regime, under which New Zealand has agreed to restrict the availability of missile technology.
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/afp/defense/030603054417.1lknmvca.html
Sure beats plastic kits!
website not up as I post! 😉
Cheers,
Alepou 340MB
By: XEROX - 16th January 2006 at 18:21
Just to add on previously, more modern cruise missiles are being developed with a centralised I.T unit, i dont know how the Tomahawks work but the PJ-10 BrahMos uses VPN for communication between command system and missile.
By: ollieholmes - 16th January 2006 at 17:15
Great but slightly worrying.
By: Arabella-Cox - 15th January 2006 at 23:25
But if building a cruise missile is so easy, then why don’t more countries have them?
Building such a missile would be easy, but it basically equates to a very crap military system… 100km range, with a pathetic 10kg warhead!!!
Building a missile to fly 3,000km with a payload big enough for the effort to be worth it (ie 200kgs for a nuke warhead or 500kgs for a conventional one) and also with the accuracy to be effective is the real problem. Note that I saw on the news the other night a Kiwi company has created a GPS receiver the size of a fingernail and is being contacted by cellphone makers from all round the world. Such an advance would be useful in a cruise missile in keping everything small and light.
By: XEROX - 15th January 2006 at 16:51
But if building a cruise missile is so easy, then why don’t more countries have them?
If you understand the basics of how a rocket works and understand the principals of solid/liquid turbofan engines then your only half way their,
the difficult part of developing a missile is understanding and developing the major components of a modern cruise missile one being its seeker technology, you wont get active homing radar seekers of the shelf, the other tricky part is understanding the GPS and fusing the mission computer with the warhead and engine.
Of course the future cruise missiles will be enhanced by a better understanding of net-centric capabilities as well as the use of artificial intelligent seekers, if you have the money, time and resources then you can probably develop a good missile :diablo:
By: Canpark - 15th January 2006 at 16:15
That is so cool!
By: Don Chan - 15th January 2006 at 15:55
*OFF-TOPIC ALERT*
(Pulse jet is very simple… used in the V-1)
V-1, kind of.
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th June 2003 at 04:47
They interviewed him on the news the other night… he was an engineer.
He had a pulse jet engine running on his front lawn for most of the piece. (Pulse jet is very simple… used in the V-1)
By: Sherlock - 4th June 2003 at 21:34
Yep I saw that web site a while ago. I hope he is successful. Although I would think an “internet developer” would not have the necessary engineering skills to build this, but we’ll see… But if building a cruise missile is so easy, then why don’t more countries have them?
Sign In
June 3, 2003 at 3:44 pm