To be honest, I’m not particularly impressed with the RVV-MD/SD/BD designs – they’re just minimum change variants of the current generation R-73M/-77/-37M which trade weight for range (or vice versa) and maybe offer a modest seeker update. A waste of resources IMHO, the probability of anybody buying them seems low considering the marginal performance improvements. Compared to the latest Western designs they are somewhat bulky and heavy, the true next-generation missiles mentioned alongside are the ones to watch out for.

RVV-BD makes sense to a Flanker operator, I am not sure what the problem is- it is heavier than any other Russian or Western AAM…but then again it completely out ranges all of them, and likely mounts a larger seeker as well.

The new families are definitely the ones to look out for, but as far as I can see the updated R-77 and R-73 are perfectly competitive- typically where you see larger size over a Western missile, you get increased range as well.

It’ll be interesting when they ready enough to compare. We’ll see.

R-37 ( which RVV-BV is based) achieved a 300km kill back in the early 90s, so I would say its quite ready enough to compare.

Vympel has also has a ramjet ‘R-77 type’ program long in the works (started before Meteor actually IIRC) but obviously that is not as close to Typhoon+Meteor operational capability…assuming RuAF even intends to integrate the weapon into PAK-FA.

Recent pic of Su-34 @ NAPO.

http://militaryrussia.ru/i/284/524/j2TKC.jpg

Supposedly the Mi-28 that crashed a little while back, restored to flying condition.

BMeteor, its by far the better A/A missile in BVR regimes & it would suite the IAF’s needs way more than other BVR missiles available. Captor-E/Repositioner + Meteor + ASRAAM, I don’t think even the mighty PAK-FA/FGFA could have something similar to those capabilities.

PAK-FA will at the very least have the RVV-BV available, already 200km capable..and there are more interesting BVR AAMs in development.

TR1 :

Boom :

I think that you are both wrong . In dogfight , the pilot always try to never loose eye contact with the target . He moves his head in all directions very quickly and only look ahead to verify the HUD and the c0ckpit mirrors (if any) .
Like in this video Rafale vs F-16 at RedFlag (at 1:50+) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZfm2dtyyPI

This is one of the reasons why helmets and HMS must be as light as possible .

Cheers .

Thanks for the vid Blue, and it exactly proves my point. Never in the vid do they crank their heads to a point that they could not in the Flanker while maintaining vision. That was my whole point, someone else went on a heavy helmet tangent.