Ukraine May Have Broken the Biggest FP-5 Flamingo Production Bottleneck

Ukraine appears to be fitting some FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles with British-made turbojet engines. This change could ease a major production bottleneck and potentially extend the weapon’s already significant range, Defense Express reported on August 3.

Russian specialists reportedly identified the change while examining wreckage from Ukrainian cruise missiles. Earlier FP-5 versions used the Soviet-designed AI-25TL engine, while fragments from newer missiles appear to point to an unidentified British powerplant.

Defense Express noted that the engine is central to the Flamingo’s unusually ambitious performance. The missile is designed to carry a one-ton warhead more than 3,000 kilometers, or roughly 1,860 miles.

For comparison, a Tomahawk typically carries a warhead of about 450 kilograms and has a reported range of roughly 1,600 kilometers.

Delivering that much explosive weight over such a distance requires a full-size turbojet rather than the smaller engines commonly found in lower-cost long-range drones.

The known Flamingo configuration used an AI-25TL producing 16.9 kilonewtons of thrust and weighing approximately 350 kilograms. The same engine was originally developed for the L-39 training aircraft.

Defense Express had previously identified the limited supply of AI-25 engines as one of the FP-5 program’s main weaknesses. The number of available engines could directly limit how many missiles Fire Point could produce.

The Flamingo’s designers appear to have anticipated that problem. Its engine is mounted above the fuselage rather than deeply integrated inside the missile body, making it possible to install alternative powerplants without extensively redesigning the entire airframe.

Several Western non-afterburning turbojet engines offer roughly the required 17-kilonewton thrust while weighing between 300 and 400 kilograms. Many are also smaller and more fuel-efficient than the AI-25TL.

The exact British engine reportedly found on the newer Flamingo has not been publicly identified. Defense Express suggested Russian analysts may either have failed to determine the model or may be withholding the information.

To illustrate the potential benefits, the outlet examined the US-made Honeywell TFE731 family as an example of a comparable Western engine—not as confirmation that it is being used on the FP-5.

Depending on the version, the TFE731 produces between 15.6 and 19.1 kilonewtons of thrust and weighs approximately 337 to 386 kilograms.

It is also roughly one meter shorter and 15 centimeters narrower than the AI-25TL—about 30% shorter and 17% slimmer.

More than 9,000 TFE731 engines have been produced for business jets, meaning sourcing engines of this class in industrial quantities would be far more realistic than relying solely on a shrinking stock of Soviet powerplants.

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Western engines could also deliver better fuel efficiency. Defense Express estimated that a model comparable to the TFE731-3 could consume up to 15% less fuel under similar flight conditions.

Applied directly to the Flamingo’s stated 3,000-kilometer range, that efficiency gain could theoretically add approximately 450 kilometers, or nearly 280 miles.

Earlier, the price of the Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo missile became known. Ukraine’s domestically developed Flamingo long-range cruise missile costs just under $600,000 per unit, making it roughly six times cheaper than the US-made Tomahawk, while already being used in long-range strikes against military targets inside Russia.

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