NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION, CHINA LAKE, Calif. -- Rear Adm. Brian Corey, Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division commander, and Joan Johnson, executive director, took time to celebrate members of the Solid Fuel Ramjet Flight Demonstration Project Team by presenting them with a Research and Engineering Excellence Award as well as a NAWCWD Team Award for their successful execution of a series of lab and flight test demonstrations during a June 9 ceremony at China Lake.

“You all stepped up and you not only accepted the challenge, you exceeded it,” Johnson added. “What’s even more important than the outcomes, is that you have demonstrated—not just to us at WD, but our entire enterprise at [Naval Air Systems Command] and beyond—that we are capable, we are focused, we are motivated and we know how to do this. When asked, we’re not afraid to step up to the challenge; we figure out what it takes  to get the right people in a room with the right level of empowerment, decision and understanding of where we’re going and we get things done.”

Faced with the task of compressing a two-year, $2 million project into a six-month, highly accelerated $800,000 project, the SFRJ team successfully tested a solid fuel ramjet capability that operates at least three times better than a solid rocket motor. The ramjet project was not only ahead of schedule and under budget, it also successfully integrated commercial, off-the-shelf components with internally developed SFRJ propulsion technologies.

“Our tasking from our chief of naval operations is simple; we need to put capability out faster and cheaper, and make it more relevant,” Corey said. “Having a first launch just 100 days after turning on funding, and providing three to five times more range is a great example of responding to CNO’s direction. I’m absolutely thrilled with each of you individually and, more importantly, all of you collectively.”