Ukraine's Flamingo Cruise Missiles Are Now Hugging The Ground At An Altitude Of Just 100 Feet
They're harder to shoot down
Ukrainian munitions-maker Fire Point is developing a new engine for its FP-5 Flamingo heavy cruise missile, potentially the most powerful deep strike weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal.
The new made-from-scratch engine could eliminate the main bottleneck in Fire Point’s production of the $500,000, six-ton missile, which ranges 1,900 miles under inertial guidance with a 2,500-pound warhead.
That upgrade help Fire Point finally honor its pledge to produce hundreds of FP-5s a month. Given the limitations of the FP-5’s existing AI-25TL engine, a bit of Cold War surplus, the update could also improve the missile’s low-altitude performance.
Flying faster at lower altitude should make the Flamingo harder to shoot down, potentially improving its survivability against Russian air defenses.
In the meantime, however, Fire Point has already folded an equally important upgrade into the design of the fiberglass missile. The company has apparently tweaked the missile’s altimeter.
A better altimeter helps the FP-5 fly much lower as it motors along at 550 miles per hour. The change is evident in a new video of an FP-5 speeding toward its target inside Russia.
